Steven Aalders, In Search of Red, Yellow and Blue: 4 November – 23 December 2017

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of In Search of Red, Yellow and Blue by Steven Aalders, on Saturday November 4, in which he presents the results of his residency at the Van Doesburghuis in Meudon near Paris this summer. At 17.30 Wies van Moorsel, heir and niece of Nelly van Doesburg, will open the exhibition. During Aalders’ four-month stay in the famous studio house of the founder of De Stijl movement, he explored the concept of the Golden Section in relation to the primary colours. As an homage to Theo van Doesburg, the artist will place a white painted cube central in the gallery. A brochure with an illustrated text by Aalders on Van Doesburg, designed by Irma Boom, will be published to accompany the exhibition. The show will be open during Amsterdam Art Weekend (23-26 November) and will remain on display until December 23.

Three new series of paintings will be shown. In one of the series, the surface of the paintings is gradually divided into multiple planes following the Golden Section ratio in different shades of grey. These are acquired by mixing only the three primary colours, red, yellow and blue and white to a neutral grey, without using any black. Another series shows the primary colours, red, yellow or blue, each in relation to a mid-tone grey. These series are related to Van Doesburg’s colour theory in which he proclaims that the colour grey gives a platform for bright colour planes. The third series shows two squares interpenetrate each other, dividing three primary-colour planes in different shades, from bright to dark and greyish tones.

Aalders is known for his carefully hand-painted geometric abstract oil paintings. He evokes the history of modern abstraction, referring to the origins of constructivism and minimal art. His work is an attempt to create light and space through paint. Modernist serial principles, such as repetition and uniformity, are both related to older traditions in Western art and non-Western abstract art. Different colour concepts are being investigated. The multi-layered oil paintings demand a concentrated eye from the beholder.

Steven Aalders, born in 1959 in Middelburg (NL), lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied in London at Croydon College of Art and at Ateliers 63 in Haarlem (NL). In 2002 he had a solo exhibition entitled Vertical Thoughts at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium and in 2010 his exhibition Cardinal Points opened at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, on which occasion a catalogue was published with an overview of fifteen years work. In spring 2017 De vijfde lijn. Gedachten van een schilder was published by Prometheus, Amsterdam and in autumn 2017 The Fifth Line. Thoughts of a Painter will be published by Koenig Books, London. His work is internationally collected by both private and public collections, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, AKZO Nobel Art Foundation, ABN AMRO Art Collection, Caldic Collection/ Museum Voorlinden, Museum Over Holland and Museum Kurhaus Kleve.

Roos Theuws, DUALs: 23 September – 28 October 2017

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition DUALs by Roos Theuws. It will be her second exhibition at Slewe.

Theuws is known for her video installations in which she questions the intrinsic qualities of light and sound and video and sound as media themselves. In this exhibition she will present three new video pieces and some related photo works (inkjet prints).

The Same Sun, shown on a computer screen, consists of two images. The left screen shows the effect of the rising sun through a window, which illuminates a lamp, that casts a shadow of the light that falls on it. The right screen shows the same film in reverse. At a certain point they coincide as if time stands still.

Miroir Noir, consists of two video projections of the frantic, repetitive movements of bees and pulsating concentric circles cast on a hanging sheet of black- coated plexiglass. The reflected light beams of the projectors on the glossy plexiglass attack the perceiver in an almost physical way.

Her latest work Nightworks, unequal times measured by each other, is a sculptural work consisting of several components. A fairly large black and white print of an ancient, Roman urn, is draped over an iMac- computer screen, in such a way that the shift of light from dark to bright, illuminates the print. The computer and print seem to emerge from a nearby positioned cage like metal object. The audio part is a manipulation of a recording of the sounds in between the singing of birds at sunrise which gives the piece an unworldly atmosphere.

Roos Theuws, born in 1957 in Valkenswaard (NL), lives and works in Amsterdam. Since 1984 she has regularly shown (inter)nationally. Her works are included in several important private collections in the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States and public collections, a.o. the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans- van Beuningen Rotterdam, Huis Marseille, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht.

Traces: Adam Colton, Alan Johnston, Caro Jost, Stanislav Kolibal: 21 April – 27 May 2017

A work of art is a construction. When an artist makes an object, he or she is leaving traces that reveal the way of constructing. It is his or her handwriting. The exhibition at Slewe Gallery brings work from four artists from different countries and generation together that shows marks, grids and helplines that were necessary to establish the final art work. The exhibition Traces with works by Adam Colton, Alan Johnston, Caro Jost and Stanislav Kolíbal opens Friday April 21 and lasts until May 27.

The Czech drawer and sculptor Stanislav Kolíbal (*1925, Orlová) is the strongest representative of the constructivist movement in Eastern Europe that piloted the clear abstract geometrical art through the oppressive days of communist regime.

The Scottish artist Alan Johnston (*1945, Edinburgh) makes huge wall drawings out of miniscule repetitive scribbles that relate to the architecture of the site. Small wooden panels with fields of such scribbles together with black and white planes serve as models.

Adam Colton (*1957, Manchester), known for organic objects in off whitish coloured polyurethane or aluminium, shows the grid with numbers used to blow up the scale from model to final sculpture.

Caro Jost (*1965, München) shows frottages on canvas of historical pavements. The series is a pilgrimage, going into the footsteps of the great New York painters of the twentieth century. Dust and grit from the pavement in front of Barnett Newman’s studio has stuck in the surface of white paint.

Jan Roeland, Last Works: 11 March – 15 April 2017

Slewe Gallery is proud to announce the upcoming exhibition with the last paintings by Jan Roeland, who recently passed away. His last works include paintings with a single flower or branches as motif but also some birds and a frog, his last motif. The show will open Saturday March 11 and will last until April 15. A week later an overview of his work will open in the Kunsthal Rotterdam on Saturday March 18. This exhibition will be an hommage and will show the astonishing consistent and varied artistic development of a Dutch master painter. Along with the exhibition a catalogue will be published by Waanders with illustrations of all shown works at the Kunsthal and texts by some artists and critics' friends of Roeland. 

Jan Roeland has built up an oeuvre of paintings which moves between geometric abstraction and figuration. Recognisable simple motifs of everyday objects, such as hammers, toy-aeroplanes, plants and ducks give his formally built up abstract painting some sense of humor. His paintings are precisely constructed and built up with several layers of oil paint, in which color plays an important role. The relatively small formats of his canvases fit in the old Dutch tradition of Easel-painting.

Roeland was born in 1935. After his study he started exhibiting in 1965 and since 1969 regularly at Galerie Espace. In 2001 he started showing at Slewe Gallery. He lived and worked in Amsterdam during his whole life and passed away at the age of 81 in 2016. His work has been collected by several museums, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and Schunck in Heerlen. In 1997 a comprehensive catalog had been published, overviewing more than 25 years of his work, with texts by Elly Stegeman, K. Schippers and Anna Tilroe, along a travelling exhibition of his work at the Beyerd in Breda, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede. In 2007 another catalog has been published along a solo show at the Stadsgalerij Heerlen, with texts by Tijs Goldschmidt and Jan Andriesse. In 2010 he had an exhibition at the Hedge House in Wijlre, near Maastricht.

Michael Jacklin, Inner Space Outer Space II: 14 January – 25 February 2017

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Inner Space Outer Space II with new sculptures by Dutch artist Michael Jacklin (*1956). The exhibition opens Saturday January 14 and runs until February 25.

Michael Jacklin, known for his man-sized grid sculptures, made of iron, will exhibit a new series of open iron constructions. It will be his second show with the same title showing sculptures based on events in inner space and outer space. Whereas his first show in 2014 was focusing more on the outer space, this time the inner space will be the main theme with the smallest elements, the particles at the base. Both transparent and small massive spheres are positioned within many open circles of thin staff iron. A subtle play of lines and intervals occurs when you move around them. Jacklin is one of the rare fundamental working sculptors of his generation. He focuses on the specific qualities of the material as well as on the sculptural principles such as mass, rhythm and gravity. Since 1984 he works exclusively with iron. His preference for this material derives from his fascination for iron constructions in architecture.

Jacklin exhibits at Slewe Gallery on a regular base since 1995. In 2010 Slewe published a catalog with an overview of his work and a text by Maarten Bertheux. In 2002 he had an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and in 2000 he had a show at the Kunstvereniging Diepenheim. His works have been collected by several public and private collections. He has also done several public commissions in Rotterdam, Amstelveen and Gemeente Haarlemermeer. Jacklin lives and works in Amsterdam.