Niels Smits Van Burgst

Paintings by Niels Smits Van Burgst

Born in Maassluis, The Netherlands in 1970, Niels Smits Van Burgst is a figurative painter whose work reveals moments of his personal life experiences and those shared with close friends and acquaintances. He currently lives in Rotterdam where he works in a large studio near the Sparta Stadium.

Niels Smits Van Burgst attended the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hage where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1993 and his Masters Degree in 1994. He committed himself in 1994 to depicting the experience of life awareness in his paintings. Initially he concentrated on painting private and personal experiences; over time, he gradually extended his work to include friends and people casually met through the course of life. 

The main emphasis of Van Burgst’s work is to show an identity, an understanding of what it means to be alive in Western society. His paintings, with their broad brushstrokes and cool palettes, provide the memories for their subjects’ life experiences. In many of Van Brugst’s works, he presents images of men existing in a civilized world where their excesses, such as lust, aggression and euphoria, are personally suppressed. In society, however, excesses are still experienced by individuals through sylized media channels such as television, the internet, and film.

Niels Smits Van Burgst’s  paintings have been exhibited in New York, Berlin, Amterdam, Brussels, and many more cities across Europe. A retrospective of his work was held in 2013 at the Museum ‘de Buitenplaats in Eelde, Netherlands. Van Burgst won the Van Ommeren de Voogd Foundation Prize for Fine Art in 2007 and the Aku in 2011. His paintings are in collections both private and public.

Niels Smits Van Burgst is represented by “De Twee Pauwen Gallery in The Hage.

Complete collections of Niels Van Burgst’s work, including contact information, can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/nielsSvanB and https://www.instagram.com/niels_smits_van_burgst/

Middle Insert Image: Niels Smits van Burgst, “De Schilderkunst (The Art of Painting)”, 2003, Oil on Wood, 30 x 22 cm