Color, shape, line, gesture, composition and texture are at the center of the young oeuvre of Gijs van Lith. You can find subtle visual hints in his work that look like a foot, finger, body, or a landscape. This resurfaces thru a vigorous process of painting and repainting where rough and careful consideration mingle. His works are carefully conceived stackings of manically painted surfaces. Raw emotion and simplicity serve to reinforce the central themes of joy and maternal connection. Colors are dynamites softly exploding. “Intuition and mood are my brushes and that’s what gets my engine going. I let the progress and my hand take me and I’ll see a few months later where I’ve ended up“.

Van Lith’s process slows down not just because the thick oil-paint needs time to dry. It also enables Van Lith to developed the painting better, “it creates a sort off distance that gives my clarity and the freedom to see what to do next or when it’s finished. “

The works playfully distort our expectations and invites us in, to look further, closer and spend some time with them. To go beyond the color and the powerful marks and gestures. When spending time with them the paintings open-up or open you up. Here you can really discover and experience the subtlety, joy and depth.

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.