Duo exhibition: Stefan Gross & Kees Salentijn

Gross started out as an apprentice glazier at a stained glass school, where he learned to think in color. In 1988 he obtained his master’s degree in this field and subsequently completed the painter’s training cum laude. Like most people, this artist grew up with plastic, an industrially produced wonder material. So for him it is the most honest material, because it seems so familiar.

Everything is possible with it, but at first it seems distant to an artist and only intended for industrial applications. He has made this material his own and made it useful for his ideas. He has developed a painting and making craft around plastic. He has devised techniques that are reminiscent of techniques from glass processing. In it he combines the plastic with valuable pigment and oil paint. It is image carrier and paint in one. In his work, the artist colourfully shows the decline of a society based on growth.

Salentijn, born in Amsterdam, is a painter who works from the tradition of painting. He always says he needs a motive from the things around him that trigger his fantasy. After that it can go either way.

He likes a certain ‘soaking’ in his paintings and drawings, which often use a combination of different materials and techniques. In his distinctive colorful style, he shows us his Spanish culture-inspired subjects, including the landscape, folklore, dance, food habits, architecture of the villages and beaches of the Costas. For the enthusiast and collector of Salentine’s work, this exhibition is again a feast of recognition.