Michael Raedecker at Camden Arts Centre, London, 1 May - 28 Jun

Exhibition Description:

Camden Arts Centre will be presenting an exhibition by London-based artist Michael Raedecker, showing new paintings together with a selection from the last 5 years. He uses a unique combination of thread and paint to create his atmospheric paintings. They derive from, yet ultimately reinvent, different genres from the history of art including still lifes, landscapes, interiors, history and flower paintings.

Description:

The Artist: Before starting each painting, Raedecker questions its legitimacy today. Why this motif? What is the current relevance of the genre? The diversity of the images in the paintings shows his fascination with the possibilities and limitations of the medium. He treats their heritage with both nostalgia and suspicion.

As a starting point Raedecker sources images from second hand books, magazines, old catalogues, paintings and photographs. Using details, he makes drawings or computer manipulations before transferring the sketches onto canvas. The paintings are then built up using paint and different types of thread and wool; they seem to hover between reality and fiction.

His technique of sewing into, painting over, puncturing the surface of and sticking material onto canvases slows down the production as well as the reading of the work. But it is his sombre palette of subdued greys, blues and browns which reinforce the paintings darker and self-reflexive qualities, compounded by titles which jar strangely with what they represent.

In the new work shown in this exhibition, Raedecker references flowers, washing, cakes, table-cloths, sheets, lace, food and houses. These domestic topics and the decorative associations of needlework create a friction with the fetishistic nature of these paintings.

By taking imagery from our shared collective history, Raedecker's works are both deeply original and disturbingly familiar.

Camden Arts Centre will be presenting an exhibition by London-based artist Michael Raedecker, showing new paintings together with a selection from the last 5 years. He uses a unique combination of thread and paint to create his atmospheric paintings. They derive from, yet ultimately reinvent, different genres from the history of art including still lifes, landscapes, interiors, history and flower paintings.

Before starting each painting, Raedecker questions its legitimacy today. Why this motif? What is the current relevance of the genre? The diversity of the images in the paintings shows his fascination with the possibilities and limitations of the medium. He treats their heritage with both nostalgia and suspicion.

As a starting point Raedecker sources images from second hand books, magazines, old catalogues, paintings and photographs. Using details, he makes drawings or computer manipulations before transferring the sketches onto canvas. The paintings are then built up using paint and different types of thread and wool; they seem to hover between reality and fiction.

His technique of sewing into, painting over, puncturing the surface of and sticking material onto canvases slows down the production as well as the reading of the work. But it is his sombre palette of subdued greys, blues and browns which reinforce the paintings darker and self-reflexive qualities, compounded by titles which jar strangely with what they represent.

In the new work shown in this exhibition, Raedecker references flowers, washing, cakes, table-cloths, sheets, lace, food and houses. These domestic topics and the decorative associations of needlework create a friction with the fetishistic nature of these paintings.

By taking imagery from our shared collective history, Raedecker's works are both deeply original and disturbingly familiar.

Image: Michael Raedecker, penetration, 2005
acrylic and thread on canvas
98 x 62 cm
© Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
Private Collection, The Netherlands
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Full Contact Details:

Opening times:

Tuesday - Sunday: 10am-6pm

Wednesdays late 10am-9pm

Closed Mondays and Bank Holidays

T: +44 (0)20 7472 5500

F: +44 (0)20 7472 5501

Camden Arts Centre, Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG