Slewe

These new works grew out of a long-standing fascination with Henri Matisse’s early oeuvre—specifically the paintings he created between 1904 and 1918. During this period, Matisse sought greater freedom regarding color and space, while his motifs—a studio, a window, a garden, flowers, or a model—remained present. What appeals to Drissen in these works is the tension between holding on and letting go. Matisse seems to break his motifs open further and further: walls become transparent, figures dissolve into their surroundings, and space loses its fixed order. This attitude forms the starting point for Ama. Drissen’s recent paintings allude to familiar motifs such as flowers, vases, tables, and landscapes, yet never as unambiguous depictions. Fragments of forms and meanings are shifted, repeated, and reassembled. A detail may evolve into an image, a form transform into a brushstroke, or a motif vanish only to reappear elsewhere. For Drissen, a painting does not contain an image; it sets an image in motion. The works unfold in the space between recognition and looking. Foreground and background constantly swap roles, and what initially appears recognizable turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a temporary constellation of color, rhythm, and paint. With Ama, Drissen connects his own painting practice with motifs and stylistic devices from art history. The series is both a reflection on the art of painting and an attempt to reconnect its traditions with life, memory, and love.

Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce a duo exhibition featuring work by Kees Smits and Piet Dieleman. Both artists work in the tradition of fundamental painting and made a name for themselves in the 1980s at Galerie Van Krimpen in Amsterdam. Smits, originally from Zeeland, has lived and worked in Amsterdam since his student days. He creates large-scale installations with multiple geometric abstract panels that depict the flat Dutch landscape from different perspectives. Dieleman, also born in Zeeland, lives and works in Middelburg. His abstract geometric paintings focus on the six colors of the spectrum, as well as the corresponding scale in gray tones. He also creates graphic work on paper with prints of plants from nature. In this exhibition, Smits, now eighty years old, presents his new polyptychs in which the motif of letters and punctuation marks plays a more prominent role, reflecting his love of experimental and typographic poetry. Dieleman will show a large diptych from his 'Spectrum' series and a group of new prints of plants from his 'Herbarium' series. Kees Smits (born 1945, Kortgene) rose to prominence in 1975 with his participation in the Fundamental Painting exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1990, he held a retrospective of fifteen years' work at the Centraal Museum, for which he was awarded the Sandberg Prize. His work is held by various museum collections, including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centraal Museum Utrecht, and Schunck Museum Heerlen. Smits has exhibited regularly at Slewe Gallery since the gallery's start in 1994. Piet Dieleman (born 1956, Arnemuiden) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Rotterdam. He has exhibited at various venues including the Vleeshal in Middelburg and the Muhka Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp. His work is held in various public collections, including the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Kunstmuseum The Hague, the Van Bommel-van Dam Museum, the Groninger Museum, the Dordrechts Museum, MUKHA Antwerp, the Zeeuws Museum, as well as the Bouwfonds, ABN AMRO, and AMC. Piet Dieleman is exhibiting for the first time at Slewe Gallery.