Born in the Netherlands, Michael Raedecker studied fashion design and art in Amsterdam before moving to London in 1996. Winner of the John Moore's Prize in 1999 and nominated for the Turner Prize in 2000, Raedecker's work is uniquely recognisable through his trademark combination of painting with embroidery and appliqud elements. Raedecker paints timeless subjects: landscapes, portraits, interiors and still lifes. Addressing the preoccupations of traditional Dutch painting, such as composition and light, his works offer a quiet classicism that is hauntingly contemporary. Michael Raedecker's paintings revel in the architecture of illusion. Each canvas explicitly details its unconventional method of making. Poured puddles of paint, tangled masses of yarn and intricately stitched details exist as self-contained gestures, devices with their own layered logic, conjoining to create a surreal and dream-like sense of space. Michael Raedecker draws reference from modern concepts of image construction, such as the motion and lighting effects of film, the stark colours of interior design and the special effects of digital imaging. Fabricating the cinematic through a sophisticated sense of kitsch, these elements are often reinterpreted through the unlikely intimacy of craft materials and techniques; ins and outs reveals layers of thread stretched over a collaged interior, which radiate with the inner glow of a TV screen. Through his labour intensive process, Michael Raedecker transcribes the epic to the personal. His often unassuming scenes convey the intangible grandeur of the sublime. Themes of solitude, tranquility and emotional isolation run throughout Michael Raedecker's work. His paintings of remote dream homes are often suggestive of unsettling narratives, presenting an eerie dislocation of idealised luxury and a sense of discomfort, which reflect on man's tenuous relationship with nature and with himself.
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