Paul Drissen, The Present, Present, Present: 23 November – 22 December 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition THE PRESENT, PRESENT, PRESENT by Paul Drissen. He shows recent works, he made between 2014 and 2018. The present, the actual moment, is difficult to catch in painting, since each aspect of the medium always reflects the past. The exhibition opens Friday November 23 during Amsterdam Art Weekend (22-25 November) and will run through December 22. You can listen to an interview (in Dutch) with Paul Drissen by Robert van Altena on his work on line, here.

Paul Drissen makes colourful paintings with casein tempera on canvas. He uses elements from the modernist tradition in an almost nostalgic way. Therefore, he used to call his paintings Ghostpaintings. His newest works are more collages than classic paintings. Cut-out and folded colour paper and found cloth are playfully pinpointed as ‘moments’ in a cardboard archival box. A composition trying to find a way out of the past.

Drissen, born in 1963 in Oirsbeek (NL), lives and works in Maastricht. After his study at the Ateliers 63 in Haarlem he started exhibiting at Art & Project Gallery. He had museum solo shows at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, and at the Stadsgalerij Heerlen in 2005, on which occasion a catalogue was published entitled Melodernia. His work has been collected by several important private and public collections such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Gemeentemuseum The Hague and Stadsgalerij Heerlen. 

Günter Tuzina, New Works: 13 October – 17 November 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition by German artist Günter Tuzina. The exhibition will show new works by him, both paintings and works on paper. The exhibition will open Saturday October 13 and will last until November 17. You can listen to an interview (in German) with Günter Tuzina by Robert van Altena on his work on line.

The very refined relatively small drawings and paintings by Günter Tuzina show the inheritance of the minimalist idiom of the sixties and seventies. His rectangle sized drawings in mostly dark blue, red and green colors look like windows. They are cut by expressive horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. These lines and angles are not quite perfect, which give them an emotional significance. It contrasts sharply with the anonymous, industrial perfection of Minimal Art.

Günter Tuzina, born in 1951 in Hamburg (DE), lives and works in Cologne. In 2002 he had an overview of his oeuvre in the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, on which occasion also a catalog had been published. His works have been internationally shown and collected by several museums and public collections such as The Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since 1999 he showed regularly at Slewe Gallery. In 2011 he had another presentation at the project room of the Gemeentemusuem The Hague.

Michael Jacklin, Wall, Corner, ...: 8 September – 6 October 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Wall, Corner, ... with new sculptures by Dutch artist Michael Jacklin(*1956). The exhibition opens Saturday September 8 and runs until October 6. You can listen to an interview with Michael Jacklin on his new work by Robert van Altena on line.  

Michael Jacklin, known for his man-sized grid sculptures, made of iron, will exhibit a new series of open iron constructions. 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. Last year some large monumental works by him were shown at Art Zuid, a biennial outdoor sculpture route in Amsterdam, which was curated by Rudi Fuchs. 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.

Peter Davis, Martina Klein: 2 June – 30 June 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition with a new series of small works by British artist Peter Davis and German artist Martina Klein. The exhibition opens Saturday June 2 and will run until June 30.

Martina Klein makes monochrome canvases, which are most of the time not just hanging on the wall, but they stand against the wall or stand free in space, like an object. According to Klein the composition is not made in the painting itself but occurs in the space, within the relation of other paintings. The various monochromes make a choreography of colour planes that defines the space and gives it character. She builds up her painting with several layers of self-made recipes of paint. Adding more pigments to the oil, gives the painting a radiant effect. Her specific use of colours and the way of painting gives her work an extra quality. Recently she cuts the canvases loose of the stretchers, so that they hang partly free form their support. For this exhibition she will show a new series of some small of these free hanging canvases, supported by a wooden shell.

Klein, born in 1962 in Trier (DE), lives and works in Düsseldorf, where she had her first solo exhibition at Konrad Fischer Galerie. Nowadays she regularly exhibits at Galerie Tschudi in Zuoz (CH) and at Slewe Gallery. In 2004 she had an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede. In 2009 she showed at Kunstraum Alexander Buerkle in Freiburg and in 2012 she made an installation with her works at the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, on which occasion a catalogue has been produced. Her works are collected internationally by both private collectors and public institutions.

Peter Davis is known for his shiny gloss paint paintings on aluminium, MDF or glass. He emerged as a young artist in a group of so-called ‘process painters’ in the early nineties. His newest works are made with acrylic on fiberboard using thin tape, creating a refined layered grid or web of thin lines. These new works remind us to his early paintings from the nineties in which he used tape as well.

Davis, born in 1972 in Sutton, Surrey (GB), lives and works in London. After his study at Goldsmith College he started his exhibition career at Karsten Schubert in London. Since then he showed regularly throughout in Europe and United States. He participated in several important painting group shows. Since 1996 he has regularly exhibited at Slewe Gallery.

Marthe Wéry, Tour & Taxis: 7 April – 26 May 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Tour & Taxis with works from the estate of Belgian artist Marthe Wéry (1930-2005). It will open Saturday April 7 and will run until May 26. Wéry had an exhibition at Slewe Gallery fifteen years ago in the winter of 2003-2004, a year before she passed away. In this exhibition she will be commemorated with an installation of her famous floor works, she created for Tour et Taxis, an industrial restored building in Brussels in 2001.

Marthe Wéry is one of the most famous Belgian women artists of her generation. She got known with her poetic installations of monochrome coloured panels. When installed in a space, these paintings form together a new composition and get into a dialogue with the surrounding architecture. Though she is often categorized as an analytical painter, typical for her generation, it appears in her writing she felt more related to the spirituality of the Polish Constructivist Strzeminski or Barnett Newman.

Wéry lived and worked her whole life in Brussels. She studied at the Grande Chaumière in Paris. Her artistic career started when she took part in the famous Fundamental Painting exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975, exhibited at dokumenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 and represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 1982. In 1982 she had a solo exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague. In 2011 the Gemeentemuseum organized an exhibition with an overview of her work, entitled The Power of Simplicity and recently, the museum exhibited an overview of her works on paper. In 2001 she had a solo exhibition at Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and in 2004 she installed an impressive solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts of Tournai (BE), including a catalogue Les couleurs du monochrome. Last year a retrospective of her work had been on view at BPS22 in Charleroi (BE). Her work has been collected internationally by several private and public institutions, such as the Stedelijk Museum voor Aktuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, Gemeentemuseum The Hague and Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris.

Adam Colton, Silver: 3 March – 1 April 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Silver by Adam Colton. It opens Saturday March 3 and will run until April 1. Colton, who is known as a sculptor of organic shaped carvings, will show new works on paper and two recent aluminium cast sculptures.

Colton's career began in the early eighties with white plaster constructions based on his own leg. His work developed through geometric stone and wood carvings towards organic shaped carvings in the artificial material of polyurethane foam, which he gave a natural feel through sanding and painting them in an off whitish colour. The last years he also casts these forms in aluminum. At the same time, he still occupies himself with sculptural principles as volume, space and weight. The practice of drawing is the underpinning for all his works. The developing process from initial drawing to a three-dimensional object is essential for the outcome of the work. For this exhibition he specially created some different series of drawings, experimenting with various material, like silver paint and iridescent paper, reflecting light and space.

Colton was born in 1957 in Manchester (GB). Since 1981 he lives and works in the Netherlands. After his study at the Ateliers 63 in Haarlem he had his first solo show at Art & Project in Amsterdam in 1983. Since 2002 he exhibits regularly at Slewe Gallery. This will be his fifth solo exhibition at Slewe. Through the years he had several museum shows in the Netherlands, at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Commanderie van St.Jan in Nijmegen, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede and Gemeentemuseum The Hague. In 2009 his exhibition Love Arises from the Foam opened at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In the Winter of 2013/2014 He had a solo exhibition of his work Carvings and Bones at Museum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo. In the same period Slewe Gallery published a catalogue covering almost 25 years of his work, with texts by Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain in London and Anno Lampe, private collector.

Ian Davenport: New Works on Paper: 13 January – 24 February 2018

Slewe Gallery is pleased to present new works on paper by British artist Ian Davenport. The exhibition opens Saturday January 13 and will run until February 24.

For his fourth exhibition at Slewe Gallery, Davenport will show a new series of large colour etchings on paper, which he made in collaboration with Alan Cristea Gallery in London. They consist of both mono prints and editions of his famous poured images. Highlights include the monumental Poured Triptych Etching Ambassadors (After Holbein) of 177 x 255 cm, his largest print to date, of which the colours are abstract interpretations of the colours used in Holbein’s famous painting The Ambassadors, on display at the National Gallery in London, and a new series of silk screen prints featuring a new addition, coloured ‘splats’ of paint, to his process. These prints are accompanied by some recently made unique drawings, entitled Staggered Lines.

Davenport is one of the most important British abstract painters of his generation, who is interested in the process of painting. Characteristic for his technique is pouring paint. He has been practising this method over the years, reaching a refined surface and image. Very thin lines and subtle colours are a result of the highly controlling hand and aesthetic eye. Colour becomes more and more the main subject in his work. The images derive from the act of pouring and range from arches, circles to lines which pool to form puddles at the bottom of the composition.

Ian Davenport lives and works in London. He was born in Kent in 1966. He graduated from Goldsmiths College of Art in 1988 and as one of the generation of Young British Artists, he participated in the seminal 1988 exhibition Freeze. In 1991 he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and in 1990 he had his first solo exhibition at Waddington Galleries, where he still exhibits on a regular base. In 2000 he had a solo exhibition at the Tate Liverpool and in 2004 an overview at the IKON Gallery in Birmingham. In 2014 a monograph of his work was published by Thames & Hudson. Davenport has exhibited extensively across the world and his work is held in numerous public collections including a.o. Tate, London, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Museum of Modern Art, La Spezia, AkzoNobel Art Collection, Amsterdam and Caldic Collection/Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar. Since 2001 he shows regularly at Slewe Gallery.