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Fragment of 'Muur van de Verbeelding', Machelen-aan-de-Leie

In the vicinity of the Roger Raveel Museum, the artist also left his traces in other places in Machelen-aan-de-Leie.

The Muur van de Verbeelding ("Wall of the Imagination") covers almost 40 meters and is located in the Karperstraat. It can be seen as a triptych with an inward and outward angle of 90 degrees. In a carefully thought out concrete construction, Raveel brings his painterly formal language to life in the mirrors, the white squares, the grass-green gates, the white posts.

The upper part of the wall has several shapes: wavy to represent the ripple of the nearby water; square and rectangular to imitate the surrounding buildings - the mill, silos, farms -, oval to represent the main silhouettes. Sometimes the concrete layer is truncated at the top as proof that nothing is perfect. Six willow casts have been built into the wall.

There is also a sculpture group. This includes the silhouettes of Raveel and his wife Zulma, Raveel's collaborator Luc Levrau and his wife Griet, an unknown figure and the cat, Raveel's beloved and often portrayed pet. Mirror elements were also used for these portraits. At night, the sculpture group is beautifully lit.

In the Posthoornstraat number 70A, on the other side of the Rijksweg, is the Chapel Maria Hulp der Christenen. At the invitation of the parish, Roger Raveel transformed the place of prayer into a total work of art.

A contemporary religious and aesthetic concept was born from the many conversations with the painter. The entire interior was decorated with frescoes, paintings, a large ceramic sculpture and a stained-glass window. Although Raveel cannot be considered as a deeply religious person, he nevertheless created an exceptionally valuable religious work of art in the "Raveel Chapel".

The chapel will be open for guided visits on a regular basis on the occasion of Roger Raveel's 100th birthday in 2021.