Van der Werve was born in Papendrecht, the Netherlands[1] and currently lives and works in Finland and Berlin.

He pursued studies in industrial design, archaeology, music composition, and Russian language and literature at several universities in the Netherlands before beginning to create his first video documented performances at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy around 2000.

Van der Werve has created a variety of works, including a series of film and videos and a musical composition titled by number in chronological order from two to seventeen.

In 2011, Van der Werve performed at the grand opening program for the St. Louis location of the World Chess Hall of Fame.

[7] Other parts of "Nummer dertien" feature Van der Werve in a 12-hour video work in which the artist is running around his house in Finland for 12 hours and climbing to the summit of Aconcagua and "Nummer veertien" where he completed a 1600 km triathlon (7x the ironman distance) from Warshaw to Paris.