SUPER BEAST by Gijs van Lith

Van Lith's latest series of work examines the relationship between process and finished work by showing not only the front but also the back of the painting as a finished work. At the same time it is a representation of his studio atmosphere; the freedom he allows himself not to discern and to reserve his judgment of what has been created during his painterly daze. Or as in his own words 'beast mode'.

ABOUT GIJS VAN LITH
Gijs van Lith, born in 1984, studied art at the art academy AKV St Joost in 's-Hertogenbosch (NL). After his bachelor's degree, he obtained his master's degree at the same academy a few years later and established himself as an independent artist. Gijs van Lith's work is quickly noticed in the artistic world; The artist has been nominated several times for incentive prizes for young artists and in 2009 he won the Thieme Art Young Talent Award. His work is now also gaining international acclaim and is included in national and international private and corporate collections.

Gijs van Lith's work focuses on the creation process of the work of art, in which the choice of painting materials and the working method play an important role. Van Lith also considers the material of a painting's support to be just as important as the material used. For example, the structure of a grid on which he paints can partly determine the final result. The basis of the work thus interacts with the various aspects of the artistic process: dyes, composition, colors and, not unimportantly, the way of working. Van Lith paints layer after layer, but also scratches and sands away again, regularly 'to the bone', as a result of which the skin structure of the canvas can show craters and holes, accumulations and holes. In addition, the work is actually only finished when the artist chooses the place where it can ultimately be shown. The location of the artwork plays an important role in arriving at the final experience of it. Light, walls, corners and passages in the room are also decisive.