Minne Kersten

Minne Kersten (1993, Utrecht, The Netherlands) lives and works in Paris and Amsterdam. She is an artist working with video, installation and paintings. Underneath these media lies a literary approach in which she combines several techniques to construct a world where objects and scenes hold traces of both facts and fiction. She speculates on how we can recall events, memories and stories, by tracing what is lost in what remains. Her work considers the relationship between the real and the imagined, the ordinary and the ephemeral, and poses questions about memory and reconstruction. By drawing attention to the act of construction in both our shared real and imagined world, her work offers a connection between intimate themes such as mourning, loss and desire, and the collective domain of fiction, fables and symbol making.

Painting and drawings are continuously made during a process of introspection and research, serving as a form of visual note taking made alongside her spatial approaches. In recent years, she has used the method of crafting an architectural environment, which reveals itself as a scenography, a film set, and subsequent sculpture. Often informed by personal encounters with spaces, these sculptures provide a tangible terrain to explore how a space can witness or distort stories and events. By staging situations that embed symbolic elements such as the appearance of animals or phantom presences, she refers to ways of how the past can leave impressions on the present.

Kersten studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (2012–2016) and completed a residency at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2018–2020). Further residencies include Triangle-Astérides, Marseille (2023); Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2024); and Villa Belleville, Paris (2025).

Solo exhibitions include Changing Rooms, Kasteel Wijlre Estate, Wijlre, NL (2026); There's Always Another Twist, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2025); Day for Night, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, (2025) ; The Same Room, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2023); Ghosts Don't Like New Things, Atelier Néerlandais, Paris+ by Art Basel, Paris (2023); Where I'm Calling From, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow International (2024); The Same Room, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (2022); Constant Companion, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2022); and Constant Companion, Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (2021).

Group exhibitions include Phantom Itineraries, CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2024); The 16th Lyon Biennale, IAC Institute of Contemporary Art, Villeurbanne (2022); Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs, Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam (2022); They Won't Stand Time, The Living Art Museum, Reykjavík (2022); Snooperverse, HISK Exhibition Space, Brussels (2022); and Haus Wien, Vienna (2021).

In 2022 Kersten was awarded the Volkskrant Visual Arts Audience Award and was nominated for the Royal Award for Contemporary Painting. She is represented by Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam.