Steven Aalders, Shadow: 27 November – 23 January 2022

Slewe Gallery is pleased to host the exhibition Shadow by Steven Aalders from November 27, 2021 to January 8, 2022, now extended until January 23, including the Amsterdam Art Gallery Weekend on 22 & 23 January with opening hours from 12 noon to 5 pm.

Aalders presents some new series of square sized paintings in various dimensions, all divided in two equal vertical planes of colour. The two colours are brought in balance and form together a ‘oneness in twoness’. Recently Aalders’ colour palette has intensified and shows more darker tones overall. The choice of colours is inspired by different sources, from nature as well as from various colour theories, for instance that of Goethe’s, who saw colour as shadow, which arises from a mixture of light and darkness. In addition, some series are inspired by the palette of old masters, such as the renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald and American modernist Milton Avery. At the same time Aalders’ exhibition Seasons will be on view at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. On this occasion a comprehensive catalogue has been published by the museum in collaboration with Hatje Cantz. It gives an overview of the last ten years and is designed by Irma Boom. You can listen to an interview with the artist by Robert van Altena [in Dutch] here.

Steven 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 linked to age-old concepts of depicting time and place. Different colour concepts are being investigated. In his paintings he expresses the rhythm of life.

Steven Aalders, born in 1959 in Middelburg (NL), lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied at Croydon College of Art in London and at Ateliers 63 in Haarlem (NL). In 2002 he had his first museum solo exhibition Vertical Thoughts at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium and in 2010 followed by Cardinal Points at the Gemeentemuseum (Kunstmuseum) in The Hague, on which occasion a catalogue was published with an overview of fifteen years work. Last year he made an installation at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, referring to Van Gogh’s painting Harvest. His current solo exhibition Seasons in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo will be on view until June 5, 2022. In 2017 the book The Fifth Line. Thoughts of a Painter was published by Koenig Books, London, in which Aalders’ thoughts on art and particularly abstract art and its relation to the world are discussed in a series of interviews conducted by Robert van Altena. Aalders’ work is internationally collected by both private and public collections, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kröller-Müller Museum, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Museum Voorlinden, AkzoNobel Art Foundation, ABNAMRO Art Collection, BPD Art Collection, Thoma Art Collection and Over Holland Collection.

Lon Pennock, alphabet and melody: 16 October – 13 November 2021

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition alphabet and melody by the Dutch artist Lon Pennock (1945-2020). His powerful oeuvre includes large, monumental abstract sculptures in Corten steel. They can be found in various places in public space in the Netherlands and Germany, including on Blaak in Rotterdam (The River, 1984), on Stadhouderslaan in The Hague (Balance of Sheets, 1980) and in the Plantage park in Schiedam (Antipode, 2007). The exhibition at the gallery presents some smaller and middle-sized sculptures, giving an overview of the last three decades, as well as works on paper, some collages and screen prints. The exhibition opens on Saturday October 16 and will run until November 13.

Pennock’s works are made of steel. Both his small and large abstract sculptures look stunningly simple thanks to his use of a few basic geometric forms, such as blocks, sheets, rods, and spheres. These forms are welded into abstract compositions, as if it had been found by chance, playing with the sculptural principles of weight, rhythm, and mass. Most titles of his sculptures, like Balance, Stack, Bridge, Wall, Gate, refer to these basic sculptural themes.

Pennock was born in 1945 in The Hague. After his study at the Koninklijke Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving in The Hague and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the sixties, he soon moved away from his traditional figurative practice towards a more abstract, and minimal sculpture. He became known for his large outdoor minimal Corten steel sculptures that can be found in Rotterdam, Schiedam, The Hague, and Amsterdam, among others. His work has been shown and collected internationally by both private and public collections. From 1979 to 1990 he was also director of the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. He lived and worked alternately in The Hague and Nettersheim in Germany. After a short illness he died in Spring 2020.

In 2019 Slewe Gallery already showed a series of small works by him. A recent interview with him about his work by art critic Robert van Altena can be heard on the gallery’s website.

Brainwave: 4 September – 9 October 2021

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the group exhibition Brainwave, including a selection of works by Alan Charlton, Callum Innes, Dan Walsh, Domencio Bianchi, Jan van Munster, Jerry Zeniuk, Joris Geurts, Karel Appel, Krijn de Koning, Michael Jacklin, Steven Aalders.

The exhibition will be on view from September 4 to October 9. The gallery is open from Wednesday to Saturday from 1 to 6 pm and by appointment.

The exhibition with new work by Domenico Bianchi and Nunzio, previously scheduled for September, has been postponed to spring 2022. 

Karel Appel, Horizon of Tuscany: 24 April – 27 June 2021

This year it is 100 years since the birth of the most famous post-war Dutch artist, Karel Appel (1921–2006). To mark this occasion, Slewe Gallery is pleased to host Horizon of Tuscany, an exhibition of work by Appel. This will open during the weekend of his birthday, April 25, and the works will remain on view until June 27, 2021. The exhibition has been arranged by Rudi Fuchs, the former director of the Stedelijk Museum and a close friend of Karel Appel, and organised in collaboration with the Karel Appel Foundation. It will be accompanied by a catalogue, designed by Rutger Fuchs. Also, you can listen to a conversation between Harriet Appel-de Visser, Appel's widow, and Robert van Altena on this exhibition here.

The exhibition will show a selection of five paintings from Appel’s Horizon of Tuscany series from 1995, when the artist was 74 years old. The works all have an elongated format, measuring 115 x 300 cm, and are in the artist’s late style. In the nineties, Appel, known for his baroque expressionist painted figures and nudes, concentrated on the landscape as a subject. This was a motif he had not previously explored in such depth. Living in Tuscany at the time, he started to paint a number of landscapes ‘after nature’, featuring the hills and cypresses around the house. The motifs of trees and hills are absorbed into an all-over pattern of rhythmically applied brushstrokes. A waving, pulsating surface arises, like a colourful tapestry. In addition to these paintings, some works on paper based on the same theme and from the same period will be on display.

Appel’s late-style works have been receiving increasing international interest, with exhibitions at Blum and Poe in Los Angeles, Max Hetzler in Berlin, Jahn und Jahn in Munich and Almine Rech in Paris. Slewe Gallery has previously shown Appel’s work in 2011, in the exhibition Couplet 7, curated by Rudi Fuchs, and in 2016, with a group of abstract paintings from 1978–1980, entitled Reset. The forthcoming exhibition, Horizon of Tuscany, at Slewe Gallery is part of a series of activities to mark the 100th anniversary of Appel’s birth. The celebrations started at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin with an exhibition of his sculptures; this summer Jahn und Jahn will publish a catalogue, entitled Karel Appel, Collages from 1957–1968; and in September EenWerk in Amsterdam will show two of his object paintings from the eighties.

Michael Jacklin, Various Thoughts: 6 March – 10 April 2021

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Various Thoughts by Dutch artist Michael Jacklin (*1956). The exhibition will show some new works. It opens Saturday 6 March and runs until 10 April, 2021. Due to the Corona regulations there will be no special opening. You can visit the the exhibition by making an appointment in advance from Wednesday to Saturday from 1 to 6 pm.

Michael 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 bridges and architecture. The last few years most work are made of either staff iron or iron plate. With basic forms, such as cubes, boxes and spheres he builds up an open grid like construction. A subtle play of lines and intervals occurs when you move around them.

Jacklin exhibits at Slewe Gallery on a regular base since 1995. In 2010 Slewe Gallery published a catalog with an overview of his work. In 2019 his work was included in the exhibition Negative Space at ZKM in Karlsruhe and in 2017 some of his large monumental works were shown at Art Zuid, a biennial outdoor sculpture route in Amsterdam, which was curated by Rudi Fuchs. In 2002 he had an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and in 2000 at the Kunstvereniging Diepenheim. This coming September there will be an exhibition of his work at Galerie LUMC in Leiden. His works have been collected by several public collections, such as the Stedeijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, ABN AMRO Art Collection and AkzoNobel Art Foundation, as well as many private collections. He has also done several public commissions in Rotterdam, Amstelveen and Gemeente Haarlemmermeer. Jacklin lives and works in Amsterdam.

Jan Roeland, Selected Works: 20 January – 27 February 2021

Slewe Gallery is pleased to host the exhibition with selected works by Jan Roeland, who passed away five years ago. The selection of works includes paintings through the years, with boxes and tables from the seventies and knifes and cones from the eighties to his last motifs of single flowers and branches. It shows the astonishing consistent and varied artistic development of a Dutch master painter. Due to the Corona regulations the show will be on view online only or by appointment until February 27. 

Jan Roeland (1935-2016) has built up an oeuvre of paintings which moves between geometric abstraction and figuration. Recognizable 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 started exhibiting after his study 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. After his death the Kunsthal Rotterdam organized an overview of his work in 2017, including a catalog published by Waanders. In 2019 another selection of works by Roeland was on view at the Stedelijk Museum Kampen.