Edwin IJpeij

About Artist:

Edwin IJpeij (b. 1969) is a contemporary Dutch painter and artist-inventor based near Maastricht. His work explores how human dignity, intimacy and the sacred can be encountered through the presence of the living body.

For IJpeij, a portrait begins before the first photograph, drawing or brushstroke. It begins in a meeting: through conversation, attention and the gradual emergence of trust. Rather than treating the human figure as an object of observation or desire, he seeks to portray the individual as a living presence—vulnerable, self-possessed and irreducibly human.

This approach places the human encounter at the centre of his practice, where the act of seeing becomes inseparable from the act of meeting. His work reflects on how presence itself can be translated into image, without reducing the subject to representation alone.

Drawing on his background in chemistry, IJpeij combines historical painting methods with his own material research. His paintings are constructed through carefully prepared grounds, monochromatic underpainting and multiple layers of tempera and oil. The resulting surfaces possess a quiet luminosity and physical depth, informed by the work of the Old Masters without becoming historical reconstruction.

IJpeij was a finalist in the Dutch national television series De Nieuwe Vermeer. His painting The Three Marys at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was presented at the Vrijheidsmuseum in the Netherlands. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in private collections across Europe. He is represented by Espace Art Gallery in Brussels and Galerie ArtPéro in Belgium.

About Artwork:

This work is inspired by the painting David with the Head of Goliath by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. Edwin took a theme the death of the ego, since our ego's are often the Goliaths in our own lives. They seem important and gigantic, however, when being aware of your own ego, creates a feeling of absolute freedom. This theme is pictured by the model who carries her own head, which is in reality obviously impossible. The head symbolises her mind, her ego. 

The  artwork is created by Edwin IJpeij, the model and the grime/makeup artist Annelies Zielman-van Oosterum.