The (bicycle) trailer is a recurring element in Raveel’s paintings and drawings. This creates a spatial impact and introduces the suggestion of a certain dynamism. In 1968, Raveel decides to turn it into a ‘painting object’, namely Cart to carry the sky. This work consists of a painted cube with real bicycle wheels and a mirror on top. The cart’s transporting function takes on a purely poetic meaning here: through the mirror, one transports the clouds, the air, the infinity above. In 1991, Raveel creates the variation titled Space trailer. This trailer consists entirely of mirrored glass on the outside and thus reflects (or annexes to itself) the entire environment, including the viewer.

Mirrors

In Raveel’s work, mirrors are unequivocally used to annex the environment, the viewer, time, to the work. By painting a rough smudge on the edge of the mirror, he connects it to the rest of the canvas or object, while at the same time pictorially affecting the reflected reality. In this way, he explicitly establishes a dialogue between art and reality. Raveel calls this ‘making the painting flow out into its surroundings’.