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Ronald A. Westerhuis

b. 1971, Netherlands · Lives and works in Zwolle, the Netherlands, with a workshop in Shanghai, China

Ronald A. Westerhuis came to steel long before he came to sculpture. Prior to becoming an artist, he worked in offshore engineering and welding, where his understanding of metal developed through direct contact with weight, heat, pressure and large-scale industrial structures. When he later turned to art, that experience remained fundamental. Steel was never simply a neutral material to be shaped; it carried its own resistance, force and physical memory.

Stainless steel gradually became central to his sculptural language, particularly through the use of highly polished surfaces. Reflection transforms the material. What appears solid and heavy begins to absorb its surroundings, returning fragments of sky, architecture, light and the viewer to the surface of the work. The sculpture retains its physical mass, yet visually refuses complete separation from the space around it.

Scale, for Westerhuis, is equally experiential. His larger works are understood through the body before they are fully understood through the eye. Viewers move around them, approach them and step back from them, continuously recalibrating their own position in relation to the object. This concern lies behind his long-standing interest in the power of landmarks: not spectacle for its own sake, but the capacity of a sculptural form to alter how a place is perceived, remembered and shared.

As his practice moved increasingly into public space, questions of monumentality also became questions of collective experience. In memorial and civic works, Westerhuis does not use sculpture to impose a single interpretation. Instead, weight, scale, reflection and openness create a space in which viewers bring their own presence and memory to the work. The reflective surface becomes especially important here, allowing the sculpture to remain visually connected to a changing world rather than closing itself into a fixed image.

Whether placed in a museum, an urban setting or a landscape, Westerhuis returns to the same central tension: how an object of considerable physical force can remain open to its surroundings, and how a material associated with permanence can be continually altered by light, space and human presence. His sculpture emerges from this balance between strength and vulnerability, solidity and change.

SELECTED SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2026 Transcendente Abstractie, with Maryse Ceha, Koelwaterhal, Zwolle, the Netherlands Sporen in de ruimte, Chabot Fine Art, The Hague, the Netherlands 2025 New Energy: 25 Jaar Ronald A. Westerhuis, Koelwaterhal, Zwolle, the Netherlands 2023 BEING!, Pulchri Studio, The Hague, the Netherlands Energy, Gallery Ysebaert, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium 2020 SOUL, SmithDavidson Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2019 Selfreflection, Gerhardt Braun Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, Spain Selfreflection, ArtCN Gallery, Shanghai, China 2018 Size Does Matter, Museum de Fundatie and Kasteel het Nijenhuis, Zwolle and Heino, the Netherlands 2017 COLOR, Mark Peet Visser Gallery, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands 2016 STARDUST, Mark Peet Visser Gallery, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands ENERGIZER, Project 2.0 Gallery, The Hague, the Netherlands 2014 Solo exhibition, Bogert Gallery, Knokke, Belgium 2013 RAWSOME! – The Retrospective, River South Art Centre, Shanghai, China 2011 RAWSOME!, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, the Netherlands SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2026 Parallel Currents, ArtCN Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Transformation, Gerhardt Braun Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, Spain Beyond Material, Gerhardt Braun Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, Spain 2025 ARTZUID 2025, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Voorhout Monumentaal 2025: Vier de verbeelding / Celebrate Imagination, Pulchri Studio and Lange Voorhout, The Hague, the Netherlands 2024 01, Museum EICAS, Deventer, the Netherlands Àmare – Sculpture Festival, Damme and Bruges, Belgium 2023 ENERGY, Koelwaterhal, Zwolle, the Netherlands ARTZUID 2023, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Voorhout Monumentaal 2023, Pulchri Studio and Lange Voorhout, The Hague, the Netherlands 2022 Sculptures on the Lange Voorhout, The Hague, the Netherlands 2021 IMAGINE – ARTZUID 2021, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2020 AVALON – Yuri Honing, Mariecke van der Linden, Ronald A. Westerhuis, Kasteel het Nijenhuis, Heino, the Netherlands 2015 Blue Sculpture Exhibition, Qingdao, China 2012 Dutch Design Work, Consulate General of the Netherlands, Shanghai, China SELECTED ART FAIRS 2025 PAN Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Art Miami, Miami, USA 2024 PAN Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Art Miami, Miami, USA 2023 Art The Hague, Pulchri Studio presentation, The Hague, the Netherlands 2017 CONTEXT Art Miami, with K+Y Gallery, Miami, USA Los Angeles Art Fair, with K+Y Gallery, Los Angeles, USA CONTEXT Art Fair, with K+Y Gallery, Hong Kong, China 2016 Art Cologne, with Mark Peet Visser Gallery, Cologne, Germany 2015 Art Cologne, with Mark Peet Visser Gallery, Cologne, Germany 2014 Shanghai Art Fair, with Purple Roof Gallery, Shanghai, China 2013 Shanghai Art Fair, with Purple Roof Gallery, Shanghai, China 2011 Sculpt Miami, Miami, USA SCOPE Miami, Miami, USA 2010 Sculpt Miami, Miami, USA PUBLIC PROJECTS & COMMISSIONS 2025 UNITY, sedak, Gersthofen, Germany Remember Our United Beginning, fabrication and execution for artist Buhlebezwe Siwani, Lange Voorhout, The Hague, the Netherlands 2023 United Energy, Seele GmbH, Munich, Germany Infinity, Ommeland en Stad, Eelderwolde, the Netherlands 2022 WE ARE GOD, Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands 2021 Waterlife, Vanderkamp, Zwolle, the Netherlands 2020 Circles of Life, HAKRON, Harderwijk, the Netherlands HEB LIEF, international public campaign, Zwolle, the Netherlands 2019 Blossom, Rozendaal, the Netherlands WE ARE GOD, MOJO Concerts / Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands 2018 Unity, Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands Universe, Bernardus Golf, Cromvoirt, the Netherlands Dragon Eye, Shu Xiang Men Di, Shanghai, China 2017 National Monument MH17, Vijfhuizen, the Netherlands 2016 Liquid, MOJO Concerts / Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands Infoversum, Groningen, the Netherlands 2015 WINGS, collaboration with Studio Daniel Libeskind, Expo Milano 2015, Milan, Italy 2014 New Life, Jing’an International Sculpture Project, Jing’an Sculpture Park, Shanghai, China 2011 RAWSOME!, Museum de Fundatie / MOJO Concerts, Zwolle, Biddinghuizen and Heino, the Netherlands 2008 Global Peace Energy, project concept, Hardanger, Norway Olympic Flame, proposal developed in connection with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing, China 2007 Waterdrop, Drents Overijsselse Delta, Zwolle, the Netherlands Pride, Royal Dutch Shell, Amsterdam, the Netherlands CULTURAL INITIATIVES Koelwaterhal, founder and initiator, Zwolle, the Netherlands Former industrial cooling-water hall transformed into a platform for contemporary art, exhibitions and cultural programming. AWARDS & HONOURS 2026 Silver Medal of Honor of the Province of Overijssel, the Netherlands Artist of the Year 2026 / Kunstenaar van het Jaar, the Netherlands 2017 Johan Cele Award, Zwolle, the Netherlands SELECTED INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTIONS Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, the Netherlands De Haagse Hogeschool, The Hague, the Netherlands SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2021 Raymond van Olphen, Voortleven / Living On, documenting the development and realisation of the National Monument MH17, the Netherlands 2018 Ronald A. Westerhuis: Size Does Matter, exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with the survey at Museum de Fundatie and Kasteel het Nijenhuis, Waanders & De Kunst, Zwolle, the Netherlands