Peter Klashorst
Peter Klashorst (Santpoort-Noord, 1957) a.k.a. Peter van de Klashorst was enrolled at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1976 to 1981 and graduated with honors. At the academy he met the brothers Van der Ploeg: Maarten and Rogier, with whom he formed several bands (Interior and Soviet Sex) and a pirate broadcasting network (PKP TV).
Peter Klashorst works as a painter, sculptor and photographer and is mostly known for his figurative work as well as extensive travels to New York, numerous African nations, Cambodja and other Asian countries. By the nineties Peter Klashorst had built quite the name for himself.
Upon graduating he already gained some notoriety with ‘De Nieuwe Wilden’, a neo-expressionist movement following the example of the German ‘Neue Wilden’. In 1987 Klashorst starts ‘After Nature’ and the accompanying Amsterdam Institute for The Art of Painting under the motto: go paint, paint a as much as you can, and paint what you see. ‘After Nature’ leaves the dominant spirit of abstract expressionism behind and, against the fashion of the time, advocates for figurative painting. Landscapes, still lives, portraits and nudes now form the main repertoire.
Both in his personal and his professional life, Klashorst has stirred up controverse.
He had to famously flee the state of Senegal after being arrested in conjunction with his supposed relationships with his nude models in this muslim country.
Since the year 2000 Klashorst lives and works in Thailand.
In 2011 Peter Klashorst participated in the Unesco backed Cambodian exposition S21 which seeks to portray victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide.
In 2014 it became known that Klashorst suffers from HIV / AIDS.
Klashorst has won the Johan and Titia Buning-Brongers award in 1982 and was the beneficiary of the royal grant for free painting in 1983. He has exhibited in well known galleries and prominent art institutions world wide.
Numerous books have been published about his life and work including his autobiography: ‘Kunstkannibaal’ (or: cannibal of the arts) Amsterdam, 2011 and the 2003 publication ‘King Klashorst’ an authorized biography by Robert Vuijsje.
