Wessel Verrijt (born 1992 in Lierop, NL) makes sculptures, architectural vehicles brought to life during performances like characters, or, as he prefers to describe them, like “hybrid entities”. Performers enter them and slowly and organically animate them across the room. These movements, and those of arms and legs jutting out, suggest human traits and emotion. They can be upset, in love, shy, tired, clumsy or lost; they wander around aimlessly or attempt to carry out a ritual together. The result is a game of approach and trying to find contact, between people and material, between performers and sculptures. Verrijt’s work originates in found materials. He reassembles collected pieces of wood, fabric, metal and cardboard into new shapes that still carry traces of their background and history. These traces are one factor in why he picks them, but he also considers their colour, shape and skin. Temporary by design, the sculptures all coalesce into an amalgam whose materials travel from sculpture to sculpture. 

Verrijt graduated from Sint Joost School of Art & Design in 2018 with his piece Optocht der Autonomen/Parade of the Autonomous, a travelling show of moving sculptures or sculptural characters. In May 2020, he received a grant for young talent from Mondriaan Fund. He presented his first solo exhibition at Das Leben am Haverkamp (The Hague) in 2021. In the same year, Verrijt was an artist in residence at Art House United-C (Eindhoven) and ARV.International (Vishovgrad, Bulgaria). In 2022, he presented work at Prospects (Art Rotterdam/Mondriaan Fund), Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), The Greyspace in the Middle (The Hague), Parktheater (Eindhoven), Museum Jan Cunen (Oss), and he spent a work period as an artist in residence at AADK (Blanca, Spain). Verrijt’s other exhibitions and residencies include De Vishal (Haarlem), De Fabriek (Eindhoven), Extrapool (Nijmegen), Temporary Art Centre (Eindhoven), Geeraard de Duivelsteen (Ghent, BE), Derde Wal (Nijmegen), and Marres (Maastricht).