Burijn (‘burin’) is the brush name of Gerard van der Vliet.
Born in Amsterdam in 1948, he grew up in the Zaan area north of Amsterdam. A kid of just fifteen years, he started work as an apprentice engraver in his parents’ engravery company. He left ten years later with a lot of experience under his belt. He took a job at a company in Amsterdam, processing gold and silver. Among the products he worked on were silver toys.
His next job was a great fit for his passion for goldsmithing and jewelry design: Gerard got to work at a large company in Bergen op Zoom, where various kinds of religious jewelry were produced in both gold and silver. Gerard started as an engraver in this firm, working both by hand and with engraving machines. He made good use of his creativity when he got to design jewelry.
After 24 years, Gerard had to leave the company because it ceased operation. Following that, he worked at the Royal Dutch Mint in Utrecht for two years.
In his retirement, Gerard and his wife moved to northern Germany. That was a great place to turn his job into his hobby: creating monograms and mandalas as digital illustrations.