Michael Raedecker was born in Amsterdam, Holland and lives and works in London. His paintings engage with craft tradition in a sophisticated way. Self-consciously bordering on kitsch painting Frisson personalises the genre of epic landscape painting. His vast mountains, created through layers of generously poured paint possess an icing-like texture; the trees are made of thick wool, stitched with rustic gusto. The sparkling highlights glitter in the snow from embedded lengths of metallic twine. Through his folksy technique, Michael Raedecker draws intimate connotation to his sublime theme: he portrays this vast emptiness with the cold comfort of homeliness.

Michael Raedecker’s paintings of houses and landscapes are situated in a nowhere place. Intimately familiar scenes are estranged from recognizable tangibility, made distantly remote through their conscious resistance to ‘being’. In his painting, Still, (oil, acrylic, Veneer and Thread on Linen), Raedecker’s garage door has the subliminal quality of a mirage. From the blank suggestion of the grey ground, tangled threads ‘grow’ as if by their own accord and the wood tile is conspicuous by its ready-made sourcing. Raedecker’s image emerges from the tautology of the materials: it’s the physicality of the surface which gives rise to its chimerical effect.

Themes of solitude, tranquillity and emotional isolation run through Michael Raedecker’s work. In his paintings, Raedecker conceives nature as an idealised environment, both as a luxurious privilege of escapism and a sinister realm of the foreign. In Deep, (acrylic and thread on linen) he paints a fragmented view of a lake. The solid steely blue surface seduces in its rich colour, the texture of ripples is formulated by painting over stitched designs. Michael Raedecker fabricates this scene with attenuate sensitivity to the painting’s surface, as if trying to postpone the inevitable thought of what lies beneath.

Nature is often used as a symbol of emotional solitude in Michael Raedecker’s work. In Room 4, his furnishings float tenuously against the beige ground: there’s a sense that this scene has been transplanted to a barren desert. Michael Raedecker literally fixes these elements in place with crude stitching as if to confirm their existence isn’t a dream. The small picture above the bed is reminiscent of Raedecker’s later landscape paintings; it lends a further confusion between the idea of interior and outdoor space.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010
Carré d’ Art, Nîmes
GEM, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hague
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

2009
Michael Raedecker: fix, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
Camden Arts Centre, London

2007
Hauser &Wirth, London , in collaboration with the Approach

2006
Up, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

2005
Show, Hauser and Wirth, Zurich
Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin

2004
Forevernevermore, Salzburger Kunstverein
Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennesee

2003
That’s the Way It Is, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

2002
Sensoria, The Approach, London
Instinction, Centro Nazionale per le Arte Contemporaneo, Rome
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel

2001
Instinctive Travels, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

2000
Ins and Outs, The Approach, London
Tronies, One In The Other, London

1999
Extract, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven
Outtakes, Michael Janssen gallery, Cologne

1998
New Paintings, The Approach, London
Cover, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam
Solo, Galerie Nouvelles Images, The Hague