LUIS XERTU
Mexico City, 1985
Lives and works in Rotterdam, NL
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 Academy 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.
Exhibitions
2026 – Podium Gallery, HK
'Halfway Across the Rubicon' - Solo show
2026 – NEON Foundation Rotterdam, NL
'Counterbodies' - Group Show
2026 – Podium Gallery, HK
'Amour Aquatique' - Group Show
2026 – VOUCH VI, NL - Group Show
2025 – Amsterdam Pride’s Arts & Culture Week, NL
'A Community Standard for the Isolated' - Solo show
2024 – Podium Gallery, HK
'History Will Say We Were Best Friends' - Group Show
2024 – NL=US Art Gallery Rotterdam, NL
'At The Fringe' - Duo Show
2024 – TORCH Gallery Amsterdam, NL
'40 Years of TORCH' - Group Show
2024 – Art Rotterdam, NL - Group presentation
2023 – Art Island Amsterdam, NL - Duo presentation
2023 – TORCH Gallery Amsterdam, NL
'In Nature Nobody Would Care For You Either' - Solo show
2022 – Fragment Gallery New York City, USA
'A Room Full of Mirrors' - Group show
2022 – BRUTUS Rotterdam, NL
'Wild Summer of Art – Part II' - Group show
2022 – Galerie Du Monde Hong Kong, HK
'Retrograde' - Group show
2021 – MOYA Museum of Young Art Oosterhout, NL
'Opening MOYA' - Group show
2021 – Art Rotterdam, NL - Duo presentation
2020 – Tropicana / Pottage Foundation Rotterdam, NL
'Tropicana Fest' - Group show
2020 – TORCH Gallery Amsterdam, NL
'Renditions of Impermanence' - Solo show
2019 – Royal Palace Amsterdam, NL
'Royal Award for Modern Painting 2019' - Group show
2019 – WTC Rotterdam Gallery, NL
'An Unexpected View' - Group show
2018 – Gloss Gallery Tel Aviv, IL - Solo show