| Biography | After his training as a graphic artist, Van Zijp arended the Psychopolis Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. From the mid-eighties Van Zip made the switch to working with stone. From him, he also leared how to cleave blocks of stone. Unlike his friend, who was influenced by the Cobra generation with his spontaneous work, Van Zijp took a different path; he started with a detailed, elaborated plan.
In the nineties, the circle was a common motif in his free work. It was a period in which he primarily explored various types of natural stone, as well as the technique of carving. The surface of his sculptures was often finely sanded or polished. Consequently, the work is understated, and a certain influence of sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Nuguchi can be discerned. In addition to his independent work, Van Zijp has also been active as a freelance stone sculptor/letter carver since the early 1990s. In this way, he gained extensive experience in working with natural stone. In 2001 he moved from The Hague to Wouwse Plantage in West Brabant, where he established his own studio and sculpture garden.
Besides the works in limestone, Belgian Bluestone and marble, around 2003 he created his first two major works, "Aspidium Filixmas," in marble and granite, which were exhibited that year in a large sculpture park in the central part of the country, and later on he moved one to a park in the North of friesland
A new turning point in Van Zijp's work occurred in 2008 when he was asked by conceptual artist Hans van Houwelingen to create an update of the latter's design for the Lorentz Monument in Arhem as part of the Sonsbeek exhibition "Grandeur 2008." For this project, Van Zäjp, together with his assistant, carved 147 names of physicists, who were also Nobel Prize winners, into the limestone wall of the monument.
（UBE現代日本彫刻展2027） |
