Kloosterboer's work is ceaselessly concerned with contemporaneity, with the creation of a world of artifacts which, in its ritual elements, is in no way separate from the self-evident verities of the material world.
Klaas Kloosterboer's (1959, Amsterdam) wide-ranging work consistently bridges the gap between abstraction and action. By questioning the elements of painting and its display, he confronts the viewer with the painting process. Rather than illustrating thoughts, his work is often an act in and of itself. As such, Kloosterboer’s work is always rooted in an action. He might determine a place on the canvas through cutting, sewing and throwing paint. Sometimes you see a suspended life-size, hand-sewn linen costume; a series of painted boxes; or even a video depicting the view through a car’s rear window as it pulls two giant balls down a road. Kloosterboer’s work is dynamic, idiosyncratic and lucid.
The artistic actions of creating space and - in a counter-move - occupying space represent the fundamental driving forces behind Kloosterboer'spractice. The roots of his oeuvre stand in relation to the developments of avant-garde painting in the twentieth century, especially to its abstract and conceptual experiments. Kloosterboer is attracted to the purism of historical Modernism, but at the same time he remains skeptical with regard to purisms of all sorts. For him rules in art possess only a relative meaningfulness. In creating his works, he utilizes the materials and techniques of the painter. He works with various abstract-visual languages, with the figure-ground problem, the painterly gesture. He brings changes to these conventional categories, however, with the goal of ushering them into the here and now. Kloosterboer's work is ceaselessly concerned with contemporaneity, with the creation of a world of artifacts which, in its ritual elements, is in no way separate from the self-evident verities of the material world. Art ought to continue to lay claim to its own autonomous space for trial arrangements.