Gijs van Lith, born in 1984, received his education at the art academy AKV St Joost in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL). After earning his bachelor’s degree, he obtained his master’s degree at the same academy a few years later in 2013. The work of Gijs van Lith quickly caught the attention of the artistic world; the artist has been nominated for several prestigious prizes for young artists and in 2009 he won the Thieme Art Young Talent Award. Meanwhile, his work is also gaining international prominence and is being included in national and international private, corporate collections. His work is also in the public art collection of Het Noord Brabants Museum. He has previously exhibited in New York, London, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Brussels, London, Antwerpen, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Van Lith was also invite for a recidency in Koln at Lesien Art Foundation and at the CCA Andratx in Mallorca. He exhibited a monumental installation during his solo-exhibition at the Kunsthal Rotterdam in 2018. And Van Lith has duo exhibition with Henk Visch at Het Noord Brabants Museum in the Netherlands in February 2020 and His solo exhibition at MOYA Museum in Breda in 2022.
Gijs van Lith's artistic research is mainly focused on painting but his body of work also includes sculptures and installations. The creative process, the choice of materials and the pictorial strategy – understood as modus operandi – play a fundamental role and are initially positioned as essential substrates for each new creation. Van Lith considers the canvas on which a painting is made as important as the material with which he paints it; and aspects such as materiality, the originality of the act and the luminosity granted to the physicality of the painting, unquestionably cover all his work.
Gijs van Lith’s latest series of paintings he rediscovered his love for color, play and simply painting or as he calls it ‘schmearing’. His red gestural marks explore the movement of his hand or arm. These marks provide Van Lith space to paint. It provides freedom and functions as a guardhouse which he breaks out from by painting thru and over the red barriers.
This a formal visual language is a stepping stone, a doorstep, a gate to go thru. It goes beyond mark making and movement. He works intensively, energetically and relays on his intuition. The new and colorful paintings are either softly exploding gestures or almost manically painted and layer on top of layer. In fact, these canvases seem to be made of flesh and muscles and at the same time appear satisfied and content, not frenetic. Some works are subtle and build up with thin layers from the back and then there the paintings build up by many layers of oil-paint and revision applied and removed manically. Destroyed layers, new layers and gestures of paint cover the surface.
Van Lith delves deeper into a fundamental aspect in his research, namely the spatial rhythm of color, shape and gestures. This combination is explored by challenging the established rules of physics by allowing intuition to play with space and take its elasticity to the extreme. His paintings in recent years have, in fact, acquired a more sculptural dimension, which allows him to create and develop his work in an increasingly dynamic and materially more fluid way. The relationship between process and finished work becomes an interactive dialogue in which there is neither front nor back. Van Lith does not discriminate between conscious actions and possibilities, between luck and deliberate intent. He is fascinated by the idea of ‘painting in space’ and by ancient rock carvings. The result is an energetic and dynamic series work that exist in a perpetually open dialogue between the conscious and subconscious.
Gijs van Lith's artistic research is mainly focused on painting but his body of work also includes sculptures and installations. The creative process, the choice of materials and the pictorial strategy – understood as modus operandi – play a fundamental role and are initially positioned as essential substrates for each new creation. Van Lith considers the canvas on which a painting is made as important as the material with which he paints it; and aspects such as materiality, the originality of the act and the luminosity granted to the physicality of the painting, unquestionably cover all his work.
Gijs van Lith’s latest series of paintings he rediscovered his love for color, play and simply painting or as he calls it ‘schmearing’. His red gestural marks explore the movement of his hand or arm. These marks provide Van Lith space to paint. It provides freedom and functions as a guardhouse which he breaks out from by painting thru and over the red barriers.
This a formal visual language is a stepping stone, a doorstep, a gate to go thru. It goes beyond mark making and movement. He works intensively, energetically and relays on his intuition. The new and colorful paintings are either softly exploding gestures or almost manically painted and layer on top of layer. In fact, these canvases seem to be made of flesh and muscles and at the same time appear satisfied and content, not frenetic. Some works are subtle and build up with thin layers from the back and then there the paintings build up by many layers of oil-paint and revision applied and removed manically. Destroyed layers, new layers and gestures of paint cover the surface.
Van Lith delves deeper into a fundamental aspect in his research, namely the spatial rhythm of color, shape and gestures. This combination is explored by challenging the established rules of physics by allowing intuition to play with space and take its elasticity to the extreme. His paintings in recent years have, in fact, acquired a more sculptural dimension, which allows him to create and develop his work in an increasingly dynamic and materially more fluid way. The relationship between process and finished work becomes an interactive dialogue in which there is neither front nor back. Van Lith does not discriminate between conscious actions and possibilities, between luck and deliberate intent. He is fascinated by the idea of ‘painting in space’ and by ancient rock carvings. The result is an energetic and dynamic series work that exist in a perpetually open dialogue between the conscious and subconscious.
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