Luis Xertu is a Mexican-born Dutch artist based in Rotterdam. He moved from Mexico City to the Netherlands in 2004 and graduated from the Rietveld Academie in 2009. His decade of work in theater and dance continues to shape his paintings, influencing how figures inhabit space, how moments are staged, and how time itself becomes part of the work.
Xertu’s practice explores queer identity, intimacy, and the tension between belonging and estrangement. His paintings often depict naturalistic figures in shadowed, emotionally charged spaces. Real plants are embedded into the canvas, gradually changing color and texture over months and years. These evolving materials make each painting a work in flux, allowing time, transformation, and impermanence to exist as active elements of the image.
He develops his compositions through the interplay of photographic elements and digital studies before moving into painting and collage. As traces of history and mythology mingle with personal experience, the images settle into a space where past and present overlap. Through this approach, each work carries its own atmosphere of vulnerability, tension, and slow unfolding.
Xertu has exhibited regularly in the Netherlands and internationally, including presentations in New York and Hong Kong. In 2019 he was nominated for the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting and received the Audience Award.
