Marthe Wéry learned to draw and paint by taking life classes in Paris. It was in this city that she immersed herself in ancient art and the modern classics. At the same time, the influence of 1950s French painting also crept into her work. Her style became more schematic and she reduced her subject matter to only the most essential lines. Back in Belgium, Wéry associated with the expressionist sculptor Oscar Jespers (1887-1970). His house had become a fashionable meeting place with studios and exhibition spaces. In these surroundings, she was able to free herself from any kind of art historical legacy. Her earlier semi-figurative imagery evolved into geometric abstraction. Shapes were deconstructed. Colours acquired an emotive aspect. In terms of atmosphere, Wéry’s work held the middle ground between reason and feeling.
Wéry was admitted to the Parisian studio of Sir William Hayter (1901-1988) in the mid-1960s, a renowned artist linked to both the Surrealists and the Abstract Expressionists. He was famous for his innovative printing and engraving techniques. Wéry later taught printmaking in Brussels and trained numerous younger artists. Her in-depth study of the building blocks of painting – support, paint, colour and line – resulted in geometric compositions with strong Constructivist influences.
In the late 1960s, Wéry discovered the work of the Polish artist Władysław Strzemiński, who had worked with Kazimir Malevich. Strzeminski and Wéry’s ideas were closely aligned. He argued that every square centimetre within a structure is of equal value, that the surface of a painting is homogeneous, and that formal tension should be equally distributed. He also advanced the white space as the most neutral way of presenting art and suggested it should be standard. Influenced by Strzeminski, Wéry began to focus on the structure of the entire pictorial plane.
From the 1970s onwards, Wéry focused on refining the relationship between support and representation. She made the move from canvas to paper in around 1975. Her desire for a more perishable material also manifested itself in other ways. Through sensitive pleating, Wéry explored the sculptural possibilities of the medium. The symbiosis between colour and texture occurred when Wéry incorporated pigment into the support material. Lines gave way to paper ridges. Support and colour merged. Austere lines definitively surrendered to sensuous colour. Wéry made monochrome canvases and, in the process, the dialogue between her artworks and the surrounding architecture became increasingly important.
Wéry was simultaneously making an international name for herself. Amongst other things, she represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 1982 with ninety-three canvases of fixed width and variable height. Through their verticality and luminosity, the red paintings brought a unique stratification to the white exhibition space. After thoroughly researching the colour red, Wéry also investigated blue, yellow and green. The artist displayed her colour research in extremely carefully arranged presentations in a wide range of spaces, from galleries to abbeys. In the 1990s, Wéry allowed colours to ‘mature’ further, whereby they acquired an unevenness due to the crystallisation of a pigment or a grainy type of paint. She also continued to experiment with the physical presentation of her work in dialogue with the exhibition venue.
