Initially Gerard Dekker’s sketches seem to open themselves quickly.
One seems to be able to group single objective or figurative elements everywhere. But as soon as the eye and the head want to fixate onto these impressions, they loose their descriptive character and turn into a free composition, which does not follow any set rules and opposes certain expectations. The artist does not create a fixed definitive structure with his line, he circles the forms with a pen or lays them out, and he approaches them without fixating them or without creating a clear expressive structure to grasp.The works develop intuitively out of the line, out of a continuing process of punctuation and graphic reaction. The creative goal is designed, over-subscribed and changed until it appears out of the fullness of sketchy and preliminary lines. This doesn’t happen as a ‘peinture automatique’, which eliminates every reflection and every system. The compositions show that the promptness of the line is in contrast to the balanced overall structure. Spontaneous free forms and marks, outlined with a fine line, compactly open or closed, able to bring tension into the picture field, bring rhythm to or border the side of the painting, the plans get defined, picturesque formations are slotted in or pulled over and with that produce a complex pattern-base-relationship as well as the pointed effect of empty spaces – the ensemble of all these elements turns into a structure which is clear and secretive, firm and floating at the same time.While overpainting, covered areas appear, parallels and changes of previous are recognized.The painter discovers in this intuitive process traces and forms he reacts to. The graph has its own memory. It captures traces of memories in the material, which turn into base and part of the pictorial statement. Gerard Dekker does not only care about the finished work; he shows the development of picture forms in the graphs and points to the characteristics of creative processes.This action is typical for Dekker’s intention. The line and its duct are the immediate trace of the pen or the hand, but at the same time the refection of something existing. A multi layered picture directory arises out of that, things of importance are negated but not titled. The artist approaches the term of ‘disegno’ in an impressive manner, an expression out of the renaissance, in which the spontaneity of form and idea result in a spiritual design, which enables to experience reality but does not dominate it. Dr.Hans-Joachim Manske Directeur Städtischen Galerie Bremen (1991)