Gijs Assmann

Forshadowing (XXI), 2024, mixed media, 28 x 28 x 80 cm, Copyright Image: Friso Keuris

Gijs Assmann (b. 1966, Roosendaal, NL) creates work that navigates the border between emotion and form, where sculpture, drawing, and collage meet themes of love, loss, and the human condition. Using materials as varied as bronze, ceramics, glass, textiles, and found objects, Assmann constructs a world in which intimacy and absurdity coexist. His sculptures often appear both playful and elegiac, figures and symbols that question how beauty and vulnerability can be shaped in matter.

Assmann’s visual language is rooted in a deep curiosity about life’s essential experiences. Religious iconography, popular culture, and personal history are all woven into works that oscillate between humour and melancholy. Alongside his sculptures, Assmann has produced an ongoing series of collages and drawings, notably For H., a collection of daily visual letters to his partner that blend tenderness with formal experimentation.

Public commissions form an integral part of his practice. Among these is Pendulum (2020), a nine-metre-tall stainless-steel sculpture for the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam, and The He and the She and the Is of It (2005) in The Hague, works that demonstrate his ability to translate private emotion into shared space.

CV

Born 1966, Rozendaal, Netherlands

Currently lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands 

Education

Studied at AKI Academy of Art & Design, Enschede, Netherlands.

Residencies (selection)

2016–2017 Kloosterhotel ZIN

1995, 1997, 2017 European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC), ’s-Hertogenbosch / Oisterwijk

1991–1993 Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam

Comissions (selection)

2025 Vanitas (for Herman de Vries), Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam

2024 Tree of Life, sculpture for the entrance hall of Amphia Hospital, Breda

De Bron, sculpture for the ENKA Campus, Arnhem

2022 ’T Kramsiv, sculpture for the Vismarkt, Schiedam

2021 Pendulum (III), sculpture for the sculpture garden of LUMC

Annunciation, ceiling relief, Huis Nolet, Schiedam

2020 Pendulum, sculpture for the European Medicines Agency, Amsterdam

The Point of Silence, three reliefs for the Beukbergen residential caravan community

2013 Ode to Charley Toorop, Westkapelle

Balloon Child, sculpture for Johan de Witt College, The Hague

2011 Ground Prisms, art installation for the new headquarters of BP Netherlands in Europoort

2008 Testimony, sculpture for the church of the Carnissehaven congregation in Barendrecht

2007 Hunter and Deer, sculpture for Beekpark, Apeldoorn

Solo Exhibitions

2022 Pink & Purple, Galerie Terra, Delft

2021 Foreshadowing, ROOF_A, Rotterdam

2019 Der kleine Weg, Kunstverein ArtHAUS, Ahaus, Germany

2018 voor H. Stedelijk Museum Schiedam

Flesh and Stone, Galerie Nouvelles at Art Rotterdam

Flesh and Stone, Galerie Nouvelles, The Hague

2015 Nevertheless, Love, Museum Jan Cunen, Oss

2014 Brengen/halen, Museum Beelden aan Zee, Scheveningen

2010 Das schwere Herz wird nicht durch Worte leicht, Villa De Bank, Enschede

2008 Ways of Fear, Galerie Nouvelles Images, The Hague

2007 Have Faith, Galerie De Praktijk, Amsterdam

2005 Wie du mir, so ich dir, Galerie De Praktijk, Amsterdam

2003 Child, Clown, Idiot, Galerie De Praktijk, Amsterdam

2000 Comic Relief, Museum Het Princessehof, Leeuwarden

Museum & Public Collections

ABN AMRO Bank

Rabobank Nederland

Akzo Nobel Art Foundation

Interpolis

Teylers Museum (Haarlem)

Museum Beelden aan Zee (Scheveningen)

Museum Het Princessehof (Leeuwarden)

Leiden University Medical Center

IONA Foundation (Amsterdam), and various private collections.

OTHER

2023 Curator of the exhibition Aan de rand van de Hemel. Visioenen, Museum KRONA, Uden

2020 Member, Drawings Committee of the Amsterdam City Archives

2011 Jury member, Jan Hanlo Media Prize

Jury member, Junior Art Prize Overijssel 2005 / Aanzet 2005–2006 / Aanzet 2006–2007

2009–2012 Member/Chair, Committee for International Studios, Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture

2007 Exhibition Committee, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim. Together with Hanne Hagenaars responsible for presentations of artists including Paul de Reus, Eva Kotatkova, Chris Baaten and Marianne Theunissen, Hewald Jongenelis, Henrik Schrat, Klara Kristalova and Daniel Jenssen, Hester Oerlemans and Ernst van der Hoeven