Michael Raedecker: now

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.

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 the Art Institute of Chicago, IL (US); Akzo Nobel Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); British Art Council, London (UK); Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (US); Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (NO); Tate, London (UK); MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (IT); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL), Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL), amongst others, as well as in many private collections.