Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Spectrum by Steven Aalders (*1959, NL) from May 12 to June 16, 2012. It will comprise new series of paintings with the spectrum as subject. One is a six-panelled work of which each panel is painted in one of the six colors of the spectrum and serves as a background for another spectral range of 12 colors. In relation to their background these colors change in perception according to the principles of interaction of colors. As a motto for this exhibition Aalders chose the above mentioned fragment from a letter of Van Gogh, in which Vincent evokes his belief in a scientific approach of painting. Aalders, who has been reflecting on artists of the past and who has been investigating color schemes of various masters, old and modern, moves with these new series towards pure abstraction, by taking color itself as a subject. The exhibition comprises also a group of small new works with a new motif on which Aalders worked during his residency at the Josef Albers Foundation in the United States last Summer. Aalders, known for his carefully hand painted geometric abstract oil paintings, evokes the history of modern abstraction, reverting to the origins of Constructivism and Minimal Art. His work is an attempt to embody the essence, to create light and space through paint. Modernist serial principles such as repetition and sameness are both connected to older traditions in Western art and Eastern abstract art. The multi layered oil paintings demand a concentrated eye of the beholder. Steven Aalders, born in 1959 in Middelbug (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 at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent in Belgium. A catalog with texts by Jan Hoet snd Pietje Tegenbosch was published at the same time. In 2010 his exhibition Cardinal Points at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague opened, on which occasion a catalog was published with an overview of 15 years work, with texts by Benno Tempel, Rudi Fuchs, Thomas Lange and Steven Aalders himself. Last year he had an exhibition at De Ketelfactory entitled For Philip Guston. His work has been internationally collected by both private and public collections such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, AKZO Nobel Art Foundation, Caldic Collection and Museum Kurhaus Kleve (DE).

• Trefwoorden
  monografie, kleur, Schilderkunst, beeld- en/of geluidsdrager
• Geografisch trefwoord
  Nederland (NL)
• Persoonstrefwoord
  Steven Aalders