'I've never built anything on new land'
STAN VAN STEENDAM
opening: Fri. September 7 2018 | 7- 11pm
exhibition: Sep. 8 - Oct. 14 2018

Stan Van Steendam (°1985, BE), lives and works between Brussels and Lisbon.

The artistic practice of Stan Van Steendam translates itself as a deconstruction of the materiality of painting, which comes to expression in his intuitive compositions. Through an extensive layering of raw pigment and plaster, the artist amplifies the spatial properties of painting – abandoning the traditional focus on surface – to increase the object’s volume, making it enter the space of the viewer. This results in a body of work that blurs painting and sculpture, with an emphasis on the physical presence of the object in the space, making it approachable from all sides. His use of texture, tactility and solid monochromes is aimed at triggering a mesmerizing effect with the observer: one of heightened perception, of inner absorption and being one with the material itself.

Van Steendam questions the limits of painting by diverging from the medium’s conventional application and proposing new approaches with minimal aesthetics. He treats the material sculpturally, laying bare the creational process in his work so that the object in his current appearance co-exists simultaneously with its history. 

The places where Van Steendam chooses to reside always have a major influence in his work. Currently, he is working from a studio in Lisbon, where he was captivated by the light and the skies. An inspiration that is directly reflected in his work.

Light, brightness, absorption and reflection are all essential concepts in Van Steendam’s work. The color grey, omnipresent in this series, is a mixture of a certain amount of darkness (black) with the right proportions of bright light (white). It’s a color concurrently charged with brightness and darkness, something that is reflected in the inner absorption of these shades as we observe them.

Van Steendam employs an array of non-conventional painting materials such as plaster and pure pigments. With his bare hands as his main tool, he simultaneously sculpts and paints, while his fingerprints mark his works. As the color of his latest work personates a border between dark and light, so can the works themselves be viewed as a kind of border, fluctuating between sculpture and painting at the same time. 

°1985, Lives and works between Brussels and Lisbon

EDUCATION
2003 - 2007, Master in Visual Arts, Ghent (BE)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 I’ve never built anything on new land, Barbé Urbain, Ghent (BE)
2018 chiarificazione, Theca Gallery, Milan (IT)
2018 new works, Asphodel, New York (USA) 
2018 cinzento, Archiraar, Brussels (BE)
2017 what does it matter, Boeckercontemporary, Heidelberg (DE)
2017 KOSMOS, Galerie LOOF, Jubbega (NL)
2015 Pico installation, vitrine jeune artiste, Les Brasseurs art contemporain, Liège (BE)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 The future has no presence, Asphodel, New York (USA)
2018 Absolute, Boeckercontemporary, Heidelberg (DE)
2017 Harvest, Theca Gallery, Milan (IT)
2017 Galeristes, art fair Paris, represented by Archiraar, Paris (FR) 
2017 Aspetti di superficie, group show with Sonia Costantini, Marco Mendeni & Stan Van Steendam, Theca Gallery, Milan (IT)
2017 Art Bodensee, represented by C.art, Prantl & Boch (AT)
2017 Panach’, D’apostrof, Meigem (BE) 
2017 Composition et couleur, Art Capital Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris (FR)
2017 Rotterdam Contemporary Art Fair, Rotterdam, represented by Galerie LOOF (NL) 
2016 Galerie Albert Dumont, Brussels (BE)
2016 I-A-M, Zentrale, Berlin (DE)
2016 Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris (FR)
2016 Art The Hague, art fair The Hague, represented by Galerie LOOF (NL) 
2016 Galerie Albert Dumont, Brussels (BE)
2016 (in)cohérences, Abstract Project, Paris (FR)
2015 Pico installation, vitrine Hidden project, Brussels (BE)
2013 Open Doors, Design September, Brussels (BE)
2013 I Book You, Muntpunt Library, Brussels (BE)
2010 Houtemse O2, Inex Factory, Sint-Lievens-Houtem (BE)
2007 St.-Lucas School of Arts, Ghent (BE) 

ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2017 Cripta747, Torino (IT)
2016 Syntax, Lisbon (PT)
2015 Prainha, Pico (PT)

PUBLICATIONS
- consistenti meditazioni, text by Stefano Roberto Mazzatorta for exhibition catalogue chiarificazione, 2018
- KOSMOS, catalogue exhibition at Galerie LOOF, Jubbega (NL), 2017
- Dubuisson en Van Steedam, COLLECT AAA april, Ghent (BE), 2016
- (in)cohérences, Abstract Project, Paris (FR), 2016