bio
Christiaan Lieverse, Utrecht, Netherlands, 1971, Studio based in Eindhoven
Christiaan Lieverse explores the meaning of identity in a world that is moving ever faster. In an era of digital imagery, polarization, and constant stimuli, his work deliberately seeks silence and stillness.
His portraits depict faces that do not merely want to be seen but look back – sometimes with strength, sometimes with pain, always inviting reflection. They do not ask for judgment, but for empathy.
Materiality plays a central role in Lieverse’s work. He paints on carpets, transforming their knotted patterns into facial tattoos. In doing so, he reactivates the original symbolism of the carpet – a blooming garden as a metaphor for paradise – and infuses it with renewed urgency.
In his monochrome images, beauty and discomfort merge. The portrait becomes not an answer, but a mirror. Lieverse’s work invites wonder and reconsideration – a search for a different perspective, perhaps that of the child within us who has not yet learned what it is supposed to see.
info - inquiries
info@christiaanlieverse.com