Born in 1954 in Brussels (BE)
After having studied drawing and painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and participated in several exhibitions, Xavier Rijs made a name for himself in theatre through the many sets he created, his installations, sculptures and lighting. His collaborations with architects, directors and poets underline his studies of space and light, and the importance he gives to scenography in contemporary sculpture.
While Xavier Rijs works with wood, resin, glass, metal and uses new lighting technologies (optical fibre, electroluminescence, black light, phosphorescence, LED, etc.), the basis of his approach resides in the raw material of the tree. Over the years, this has become the core of his work, as much as a material as a concept. Trees grafted onto lampposts, creation and renovation of urban furniture, sculptures combining dead wood and new plants, roots, stumps, branches, in the countryside, in towns, a church or a museum, his work questions life through trees, created for, in and with the place where they find themselves. His art is therefore contextual and meditative above all.
