Didi Lehnhausen is a visual artist based in Amsterdam (NL) who works with paintings, prints, installations, and performances. Her practice navigates the boundaries of traditional mediums—darkroom printing, batik, and painting—reshaping them into alternative methods that respond to environment, body, and matter.

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Working on large surfaces of paper, canvas, and fabric, she works in a ritualistic way, allowing the environment and the presence of people and animals to influence and mark her pieces. Each work goes through a series of ‘treatments’—layering, washing, and manipulation—that transform raw materials into charged surfaces.

During her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (where she was awarded the Fine Arts Prize for best graduate in 2016), she began exploring imagery from Indonesian history—connecting to her Dutch-Indonesian heritage. She developed a distinctive method of making large-scale darkroom prints. This led to her ten-meter-long prints Ten Meters of Evidence, shown at the Neu/Now festival and Art Basel in 2018. These prints brought her to Yogyakarta, where she collaborated with Ruang MES 56 on darkroom performances—painting live on light-sensitive paper—culminating in the exhibition Paper Spirits / Soil Mates at Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam. A subsequent collaboration with a batik workshop near Yogyakarta allowed her to translate these methods to fabric, resulting in the installation Eleven Spells and her presentation We Don't Wear Long Dresses When We Work at Project Space Plan B. A move to Italy in 2023 gave her access to centuries of religious painting traditions and craftsmanship, inspiring a new body of work on raw canvas using rituals similar to her batik and darkroom techniques. Currently she is working on installations of darkroom prints and paintings in dialogue with each other.

Her images emerge from shadowy places and histories—painful legacies woven into blood, the discomfort of functioning within dysfunctional systems, and the complexity of everyday life. Through layered transformations, she explores how ritual, material, and story merge—challenging linear perceptions of time and process, shaping ever-transforming embodied forms.


CV

Education
2012-2016 – BFA, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.                                                    Awarded the Fine Arts Prize for best graduate.

Residencies
2022 – Two-month residency at Temple, Amsterdam NL  
2021 – Artist in Residence at The Grand, Amsterdam, NL
2019-2020 – Six-month residency, Batik Leksa Ganesha, Yogyakarta, ID
2019 – Three-month residency, Ruang MES 56, Yogyakarta, ID
2018 – Two-month residency, AGA Lab, Amsterdam, NL
2018 – One-month residency, Studio Kura, Itoshima, JP
2017 – One-month residency, Transfer International Ruhr, DE
2015 – One-month residency at Urbane Kunste Ruhr, DE                             2015 – One-month residency at DordtYart, Dordrecht, NL

Exhibitions
2024 – Drops of a Mountain, open studio at Piazza Romboni, Lucca, Italy
2023 – BIG ART at the Bijlmer Bajes, Amsterdam, NL
2022 – ANGELS ARE ALIENS TOO, residency and exhibition at Temple Amsterdam, NL
2022 – AIR at The Grand, exhibition and auction by Christie’s, Amsterdam, NL
2020 – We Don’t Wear Long Dresses When We Work, Mertens Frames Project Space by Plan B, Amsterdam, NL
2019 – PAPER SPIRITS / SOIL MATES, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL
2019 – Paper Traces, Ruang MES 56, Yogyakarta, ID
2019 – Prospects & Concepts, Art Rotterdam, NL
2018 – NEU/NOW Festival at Art Basel, Basel, CH
2018 – For Reasons Yet Unknown, Studio Kura, Itoshima, JP
2017 – KEEP IN TOUCH, Kunstliedering Halfmannshof, Gelsenkirchen, DE
2017 – NEU/NOW Festival, Amsterdam, NL
2017 – Making Waves, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL
2017 – Matter of Time, De Cacaofabriek, Helmond, NL
2016 – Hesitation, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2016 – Ernstig Geschikt, Studio Omstand, Arnhem, NL
2016 – Rietveld UNCUT, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, NL
2015 – Rietveld Mobility, Urbane Kunste Ruhr, DE
2015 – Performing a Trace, DordtYart, Dordrecht, NL

Publications
2023 – Ancient Eyes With Purple Glasses, artist book, edition of 40
2021 – Brief aan Karel, edition of 35

Screenings
2020 – Online screening and talk, Tempat Kerja, presented by Projectspace Plan B
2020 – Away to Home, supported by AFK
2019 – Screening & performance at symposium Existentie en Zingeving in de GGZ in   collaboration with Professor Jim van Os
2018 – Screening & performance, Art Rotterdam in collaboration with Professor Jim van Os

Stipends & Funding
2023 – AFK Stipend
2020 – Project funding, AFK
2019 – Project funding, AFK
2018 – Mondriaan Fonds Young Talent Stipend


ANGELS AT RADIO KOOTWIJK 
Installation 2021
Window painting installation at Radio Kootwijk. This installation spans fourteen 7-meter-high windows and one 14-meter-high central window.
The seven windows on one side mirror seven opposite windows, creating a dialogue between them. Drawing inspiration from religious stained glass and spiritual practices, the installation explores the idea of uniting opposites within a single whole. The windows facing each other are painted as inverted images—if they were to overlap, they would form one unified color.

ANGELS ARE ALIENS TOO 
Installation 2022
Angels are Aliens too is an installation of paintings on the stage of Temple, a former theological centre in Amsterdam. The paintings are presented on the stage together with a sound piece. This residency was supported by the AFK fund.


WE DON’T WEAR LONG DRESSES WHEN WE WORK
  • Exhibition 2020
Solo exhibition with an installation of Batik paintings, ceramics and the film Tempat Kerja at Project Space PLAN B. 
ELEVEN SPELLS
Installation 2020

An installation of eleven batik pieces, inspired by the origins of batik, where symbols and colors represent the dreams or powers of the wearer. The method, developed in a batik workshop, parallels darkroom printing but unfolds at a slower pace. Colors develop in (sun)light, and once revealed and fixed, cannot be altered. Working “in the dark” requires reliance on multiple senses, with weather playing a significant role—sunlight intensity affects color strength, while rain influences drying time and work rhythm.

PAPER SPIRITS / SOIL MATES 
Exhibition 2019
 A duo exhibition at Nieuw Dakota in Amsterdam with Suzanne Bernhardt. Working with archives, collections and mouth-to-mouth information, fragments of history revealed themselves in different forms. Encountering history before through appropriated “artifacts” and “photographic evidence” within institutes in the Netherlands the artists were now confronted with the physical knowledge of the  countries. Re-thinking history through materials, pictures and techniques that are adapted and sometimes lost in progress. 

SIX LUCID SENSIBILITIES
Exhibition 2019
 Prospects&Concepts, Art Rotterdam, Netherlands 

TEN METERS OF EVIDENCE
Exhibition 2018
Light senstive paper (ilford RC), 127x1000cm
 A ten-meter-long darkroom painting created during a live performance. Three rolls of 10-meter-long light-sensitive paper were exposed to a choreography involving video projections, bodies, objects, and photographic negatives. The negatives originated from photographs taken in Central Java at locations known for being “haunted” by their colonial histories. This piece is a personal exploration of spirits connected to my own colonial heritage. Set to contemporary Indo-rock music, the darkroom choreography merges projections with my movements and ceremonial objects used to honor spirits and ward off evil.

A presentation of the ten-meter long darkroomprint and video-work at the NEU/NOW presentation at Art Basel.

FOR REASONS YET UNKOWN 
Residency 2018
 Installation of seven cyano prints (100x200cm) and a series of small silver gelatine prints. Made during an artist in residence in Itoshima, Japan. In the printing process found materials, brought to the shores by the ocean near the studio, were gathered and used in ritual acts in the studio. 


ERNSTIG GESCHIKT at STUDIO OMSTAND
Exhibition 2016
Baryta paper 210x127cm
 Looking for someone who keeps the roosters alive installed at the best graduates exhibition “Ernstig Geschikt” at Studio Omstand in Arnhem.

LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO KEEPS THE ROOSTERS ALIVE 
Graduation 2016
Baryta paper 127x210cm, 127x100cm
Installation of 6 silver gelatin prints, presented in wooden frames. Didi Lehnhausen graduated from Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy with this work and won the Fine Arts prize. Thereafter the work was exhibited in Studio Omstand in Arnhem and the Lumen Travo Gallery in Amsterdam.