02 march 2026, Flor Linckens
Painting as a System at Slewe Gallery
Until 21 March, the duo exhibition ‘New Works’ will be on view at Slewe Gallery in Amsterdam, featuring work by two artists from Zeeland who each approach abstraction in their own way: Piet Dieleman and Kees Smits. Smits has been associated with the gallery since its opening in 1994, while this marks Dieleman’s first collaboration with Slewe.
Piet Dieleman was born in 1956 in Arnemuiden and studied at the MTS for Photography and Photographic Techniques before continuing his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. He currently lives and works in Middelburg, in a former orphanage dating from the early eighteenth century, which he transformed into two studio residences with a shared garden in 1990, together with the artist Marinus Boezem. Here he works on several paintings at the same time, some of which remain in the studio for years before reaching completion. The works in his "Spectrum" series depart from a strict self-imposed system: he uses only six spectral colours – red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet – always applied in a fixed order. The paint is built up in multiple layers, a process of repetition that can extend over several years. At times the colours appear saturated, granular or thickly applied, at others lighter and more translucent. For each colour work he also produces a counterpart in corresponding shades of grey. Not as a reproduction, but as an autonomous investigation: what remains of a colour once it is reduced to tone? Such a diptych is currently on view at Slewe Gallery. In another work, the spectral colours and their grey equivalents seem to overlap.
The gallery also presents a grid of 48 plant prints from Dieleman’s "Herbarium" series, a project he began in 2019. For this body of work, executed in deeply pigmented hues, he gathers plants from his immediate surroundings and prints them in relief on heavy cotton paper. The plant itself functions as the printing matrix. Paper, plant and felt pass together through the press, leaving the silhouette behind in negative form. The resulting unique prints possess both a figurative and an abstract quality.
Dieleman has previously exhibited at the Vleeshal, M HKA and Project Space on the Inside. His work has been included in the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Groninger Museum, the Zeeuws Museum, the Dordrechts Museum, Erasmus MC, ABN AMRO and the AkzoNobel Art Foundation. Until 15 April, his work will also be on view at the Erasmus Gallery and in the Langeveld building of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Kees Smits works from a different point of departure, though no less systematically. His paintings are often composed of multiple panels: elongated horizontal compositions or slender vertical sequences, executed in acrylic on canvas according to strict formal principles. At the same time, the works have a playful quality, evoking rhythm and musicality, with a dynamism that suggests they could shift at any moment. Smits’ practice is marked by a combination of geometry, colour, semi-mathematical elements, grids and experimental typographic poetry. Many of his works are also inspired by the Dutch landscape.
Smits first saw the light of day in 1945 in Kortgene. He trained in drawing in Amsterdam, where he continues to live and work. In 1979, his work was included in the exhibition ‘Fundamentele schilderkunst’ ('Fundamental painting') at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 1990, he received the Sandberg Prize, following his retrospective at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. His work is held in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Centraal Museum, Museum Prinsenhof Delft and SCHUNCK.
