peergallery

Robbert-Jan Gijzen studied at the Stadsakademie in Maastricht and afterwards at de Ateliers in Amsterdam. In 1999 he won the Royal Dutch Prize for painting. After living partly in Antwerpen and Berlin he currently lives and works in Maastricht. The paintings by Gijzen are both conceptual and expressionistic. For his all-over compositions he takes texts phrases, which he uses as a kind of graffiti elements, covered in the ritmic pattern of pasty painterly brushstrokes. The texts are derived from pop songs, which are telling us something about the dark side of life. Periods in his oeuvre can be catagorized in colors. After a black period, a yellow one and a red and blue period, Gijzen is now focused on a pink/green contrast.