"Life on Earth" Exhibition

The exhibition “Life on Earth” displays remnants of a fleeting existence. The figures in Niels Smits van Burgst’s paintings attempt to escape the laws of time and become entangled in the materiality of the paint, while the uninhabited architecture of Rob Bijleveld’s ceramic landscapes reveals only the petrified remains of human presence.

“People I’ve seen in public get caught up in my brushstrokes, dissolve in oil.”

Niels Smits van Burgst’s work presents a painterly cross-section of the modern, free individual at rest. Inspired by everyday observations and chance snapshots of our shared lives, he populates his genre pieces with languid young people in a permanent state of relaxation. Smits van Burgst liberates travelers, vacationers, and partygoers from their context and fixes them on the canvas. There is no judgment, only the observation of flesh and paint. His characters want to move forward, but they become entangled in a web of brushstrokes and remain there, trapped in the moment, within the substance of the paint.

Niels Smits van Burgst (1970) graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague in 1993 and works from his studio in Rotterdam. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally and has been shown in leading museums such as the Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Museum de Fundatie. His paintings are included in prominent private and corporate collections both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Rob Bijleveld ’s ceramic sculptures give no indication of the era from which they originate. Organic forms appear to be printed but are actually handcrafted from clay. Architectural objects, on the other hand, are constructed from packaging materials of contemporary consumer goods. The composite sculptures in this exhibition are reminiscent of an enigmatic archaeological site. It is a place with a history of human activity, yet it remains unclear to which era these sculptures belong.

Rob Bijleveld (1964) attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and the Dutch Ceramics School in Gouda, and worked at De Koninklijke Porseleyne Fles in Delft. He has also exhibited his work at venues such as the Ceramics Triennial at the Coda Museum in Apeldoorn and was a finalist for the Art Eindhoven National Ceramics Prize.

The opening will take place on Saturday, November 21, at 3:00 p.m., with the artists in attendance. You are cordially invited; no registration is required.