Steven Aalders / Bio
Steven Aalders is known for his meticulous hand made abstract oil paintings, in which the heritage of modernism of Mondrian and the American Minimal Art has been processed. His work is an attempt to embody the essence, to create light and space through paint. Also to remap the tradition of history of art. Modernist serial principles such as repetition and uniformity are linked to age-old concepts of depicting time and place. His use of colour reflects various colour concepts from the past. In his paintings he expresses the rhythm of life.
Born in 1959 in Middelburg (NL) he studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, at Croydon College of Art in London and at de Ateliers in Haarlem. After winning the Royal Award in Painting in 1986 he stayed in Barcelona for a year. Since then he started to exhibit his work and since 1995 regularly at Slewe Gallery. In 2002 he had a single artist exhibition Vertical Thoughts at the Stedelijk Museum voor Aktuele Kunst in Ghent (BE). In 2010 his exhibition Cardinal Points opened at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. A similar entitled book came out, giving an overview of more than fifteen years of work, with essays by Benno Tempel, Rudi Fuchs, Thomas Lange and Steven Aalders himself. In 2020 he made an installation at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, in which he referred to Van Gogh's painting Harvest. And currently, in 2021/2022, his exhibition Seasons is on view at the Kröller-Müller Museum, on which occasion a catalogue is published in collaboration with Hatje Cantz, with an overview of ten years work. In 2017 the book The Fifth Line. Thoughts a Painter, was published by Koenig Books, in which Aalders' thoughts n art and particularly abstract art and its relation to the world are discussed in a series interviews conducted by robert van Altena.
His paintings have been collected internationally by both private and public collections, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Kröller-Müller Museum, AkzoNobel Art Foundation, ABN AMRO Bank Art Collection, BPD Art Collection, Over Holland Art Collection, Museum Voorlinden and Museum Kurhaus Kleve (DE) amongst others.
In addition to his painting practice he has also written various texts on art and artists for newspapers, magazines and catalogues. Aalders lives and works in Amsterdam. His work is represented by both Slewe Gallery, Amsterdam and Walter Storms Galerie in Munich.
www.stevenaalders.nl
www.smak.be
www.gemeentemuseum.nl
www.krollermuller.nl
www.stedelijk.nl
www.museumkurhaus.de
www.artfoundation.akzonobel.com
www.deketelfactory.nl
www.storms-galerie.de
