Thomas Raat
Leiderdorp (the Netherlands), 1979
The recent work of Thomas Raat (1979) is a visual research into the force field between autonomous and applied art. In his work, he is searching for the tilting moment in which radical thinking and notions of the avant-garde are embraced by ‘the crowd’ and subsequently become homely and commonplace. Within this process, he examines the ‘spin-off’ of the progressive movements in the visual arts, such as De Stijl, in the first half of the 20th century.
In his work, Raat plays with the archetype of modernism and uses certain archetypical features of De Stijl. Raat rarely uses primary colours, but derived colour hues which he transforms into an aged look. This gives the illusion of time affecting the colour fastness, and –with that- the original expressiveness.
At a young age, the visual language of De Stijl had already become the blueprint for what modern art should look like to Raat. Raat was born in Leiden and grew up in the same street in which Theo van Doesburg had his workshop at the time. “It has always fascinated me that an influential movement such as De Stijl was initiated so close to home.”
Raat has chosen a mural for De Lakenhal Open Air Museum, which is based on a book cover he has designed. This design is made up of singular colour patches and reminds one of curtain fabric or wallpaper. For the mural, the design was mirrored and repeated, creating an ornamental pattern that can be applied on a broader scale.
Thomas Raat graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague (NL) and Norwich School of Art and Design (UK) (2006), before he became a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2011-2012). Furthermore, he’s done residencies at Deflina Studio Program, London (2005-2006), SPACE Studios, Londen (2008) and Musée de l’Art de la Vie Active, Cotonou (BJ) (2013).
In 2010 Thomas Raat was awarded the Hermine van Bers Beeldende Kunstprijs (Hermine van Bers Visual Arts Award). In both 2003 and 2004 he has won the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst (Royal Award for Free Painting). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Granola’ at Galerie Juliette Jongma (2017), ‘Standards’ at Onomatopee, Eindhoven (2016), ‘Archetypes and Residues’ at Schunk*, Heerlen (2015), ‘D.A.A’ at Dover street market, Beijing (CN)(2015) and ‘2.II’ at ANDOR Gallery, London (2015). Raat participated in several group exhibitions, including: ‘Neotrism’, NEST, The Hague (2015), ‘Sieg über die Sonne’, Galerie Rupert Pfab, Düsseldorf (DE) (2014) and at BolteLang Gallery, Zürich (CH) (2013).
