1985–1990s
New York
With the Dutch art world at his feet, Klashorst set his sights on New York. It was less easy than in Amsterdam, but he did interest several New York galleries in his work and exhibited there with, among others, Jeff Koons, who would become one of the most celebrated artists of the 1990s.
The big breakthrough did not come, not least because he refused to conform to the demands of his dealers. Instead of continuing to paint in the New Wild style that was also selling in the United States, he suddenly started making abstract canvases, which ended his American adventure. Looking back, he said he should have stayed in New York when he had some success, but that the art world there was too much about money and success and art politics.
After Nature
Back in the Netherlands, Klashorst changed course completely. In 1989, together with Bart Domburg and Jurriaan van Hall, he founded After Nature, a collective with a seemingly simple principle: figurative painting, painting purely from observation. They opposed the elitist character that, in their view, visual art had acquired, along with the complicated art theory that came with it. They wanted to make art that everyone could understand, and chose almost universal subjects: still lifes, landscapes and portraits.
A year later the collective was joined by the three painting brothers Gijs, Justus and Aad Donker from Leiden and the New York-based Ernst Voss. After Nature quickly made a name with its unorthodox way of working: the painters worked live, not only in galleries and at art fairs, but also in the street, on trains and in nightclubs. The public loved these often chaotic performances, in which a painting could always fail completely; critics were often scathing. A month-long residency at a well-known New York gallery was one of the highlights before the collective was dissolved in the 1990s.