The Netherlands
https://lunavanderstraaten.com/
@lunavanderstraaten

Residency period: January - March 2026

Residency granted by @amartefonds and Stichting Gerbrandy Cultuurfonds

Luna van der Straaten (2001, Amsterdam) explores the human desire to gain control over a fundamentally ungraspable world. Working with painting, printmaking, and drawing, she combines texts, photographs, and objects into layered, symbolic images.

Systems of knowledge such as religion, science, and metaphysics recur in her work as attempts to structure and fix the unknown. These systems exist in tension with what resists being captured: the unconscious, the chaotic, and the transient.

Nature, from the microscopic to the cosmic, plays a central role in this tension. Processes of transformation stand in contrast to the human impulse to hold on and control. Her working process mirrors this, moving between control and intuition through a collage-like approach of building and erasing layers, automatic drawing, and asemic writing.