Michael Raedecker Born 1963, Amsterdam (NL)
Lives and works in London (UK)

Michael Raedecker records the memories held within spaces and objects in his enigmatic and dream-like paintings. Suburban homes, tree houses and empty rooms and vacant chairs, all float in haunting isolation. Muted hues are penetrated with thread and needle where the artist hand-sews forms into textural materiality. Raedecker mines art history and popular culture, sourcing compositions from 17th-century garland paintings, obscure magazines, and film stills. 

Since the beginning of his career as a painter Raedecker has incorporated embroidery into his works as a visual counterpoint to his washed-out paint application. His elaborate needlework adds linear definition to representational forms and the thread and paint visually mix together in areas of dense detail or abstraction. The absence or suggested loss of human presence invites the viewer to contemplate architecture as a mental or emotional space, where the domestic realm is detached from practical implications, yet deeply personal. Images of flowers, food and textiles with darkly ambiguous titles bring the domestic associations of his stitching into play with his subject matter, and show his interest in the Dutch tradition of still-life and Vanitas paintings. Raedecker’s distinct formal language explores the relationship between the formless, complex nature of our emotions and the vessels we use to contain them.

A major solo museum survey at the Kunstmuseum The Hague is forthcoming in Spring 2024, as well as a comprehensive publication on the work of Michael Raedecker from Phaidon, available June, 2023. This landmark catalogue spans his 30-year career, with contributions from Kate Zambreno, Laura McLean-Ferris, Martin Herbert, John Chilver, Stuart Cumberland and Claudia Swan.

Michael Raedecker (b. 1963 in Amsterdam, NL) currently lives and works in London (UK). He received his BA in Fashion Design from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (NL), and continued his studies at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (NL) as well as Goldsmiths College, London (UK). In 2000, Raedecker was shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

His work can be found in the collections of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL); ABN AMRO Art Collection (NL); AkzoNobel Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (US); Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (NO); British Council, London (UK); THE EKARD COLLECTION; He Art Museum, Foshan (CN); ENECO Art Collection, Utrecht (NL); Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (US); ING Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Istanbul Modern Collection, Istanbul (TR); Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (IT); Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo (NL); De Nederlandsche Bank (NL); Rabo Art Collection (NL); Tate, London (UK); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL); Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (UK) as well as in many private collections.