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  • From: 16 june 2018
  • Through: 02 september 2018
  • Location: Museum de Fundatie, Kasteel Het Nijenhuis

RONALD A. WESTERHUIS - SIZE DOES MATTER

Ronald A. Westerhuis creates vast stainless steel sculptures. He is the designer of the national monument commemorating the Flight MH17 air disaster, unveiled last year in the memorial wood near Vijfhuizen. A major retrospective of work by this important contemporary artist will be on show at Museum de Fundatie and Kasteel het Nijenhuis from 16 June to 2 September this year.

Ronald A. Westerhuis, Circle of life, 2018, stainless steel, 200 cm (h), collection of the artist. 


Ronald A. Westerhuis (b. Tiel 1971) was working as a welder in the offshore oil industry when he became fascinated by stainless steel. Since then he has created huge sculptures that are exhibited and sold everywhere from Shanghai to Miami. The indestructibility, dense structure and visual coldness of stainless steel make it the perfect medium for his work. Refusing to believe in limitations or pre-imposed rules, the artist likes to use his studios in Zwolle and Shanghai to produce pieces of vast size that become real landmarks in their eventual settings. Designs for objects 60 metres high are not so much the exception as the rule. As Westerhuis observes, “Size does not make a sculpture any better; but it does increase its impact.” By polishing areas of the steel, he creates mirrored surfaces that make the landscape, passing clouds and viewers themselves part of the work.

Ronald A. Westerhuis, Apocalypse, 2017, stainless steel, Ø 100 cm, collection of the artist.


Westerhuis’s international career started in 2003, when he designed the flame for the 2008 Olympic Games in Peking. In 2011, he created ‘RAWSOME!’ – a sphere four metres in diameter with concave mirrored surfaces – in response to a joint commission from the Lowlands Festival and Museum de Fundatie. For World Expo 2015, he created a sculpture in collaboration with Daniel Libeskind and he has since been asked to represent the Netherlands at World Expo 2020 in Dubai. Westerhuis’s attractive, prize-winning sculptures go all over the world and can be found both in galleries and in private collections like that of Prince Albert of Monaco.

Ronald A. Westerhuis, Stepping Stones, 2018.

Ronald A. Westerhuis, Scholar Steel, 2015, stainless steel, 200 x 100 x 20 cm, collection of the artist.


The forthcoming
Size Does Matter exhibition will feature a selection of his sculptures, ranging from compact works and wall pieces in Fundatie Zwolle’s ‘Cloud’ to Stepping Stones, a 9.5-metre-high sculpture to be installed in front of the museum on the Blijmarkt. Film material and drawings will provide insight into the creative process, while the garden room at Kasteel het Nijenhuis will house a presentation of the artist’s design objects, including furniture, tables, and other examples of the applied arts.

A catalogue with the same title as the exhibition will be issued by publishers Waanders & de Kunst.

Jason Myers

Part of the exhibition in The Nijenhuis Castle is a selection works by the American artist Jason Myers. Myers is a prolific multi-disciplinary American artist based in Logansport, Indiana and Chicago. Myers graduated from Kansas City Art Institute where he received his bachelor’s and later earned his MFA from American University in Washington, D.C. Myers has built upon his rich experience in different mediums and combined this experience with consistent evolution of both his style and technique. This resulted in a unique combination of traditional artistic and industrial raw materials in his current work. At the moment Myers is building a monumental 20 meter sculpture for Lowlands Festival. 

Jason Myers

Jason Myers, Intention ###########067, 2015, Mixed Media and Resin on Canvas. Collection Ronald A. Westerhuis.


  • From: 16 Jun 2018
  • Through: 02 Sep 2018
  • Location: Museum de Fundatie

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