The KNIR Artist-in-Residence 2025 is the outcome of a special collaboration between the artist, the KNIR and the RMO – distinct from the regular annual KNIR Arts Fellowship, which is co-funded by the Society of Arts. Applications for the KNIR-Society of the Arts fellowship 2026 are open from 1 September 2025 onwards.
Elisa Pesapane (1979), Italo-Dutch visual artist, curator and writer, graduated at the Royal Academy of Art and studied Italian Language and Culture at Leiden University.
Her monumental pencil drawings and paintings are ‘tragicomedies written with images instead of words’ in which underneath the surface there are always more stories ready to pop up. Human stories, about birth and expectation, joy, exaltation, shame, failure, hope, death and despair. The theatre of life and its inhabitants are depicted with an expressive force that reveals her background as a literary illustrator and portraitist.
During her KNIR residency, she will be working on her exhibition ODYSSEUS and the Drowned and the Saved (Odysseus en de verdronkenen en de geredden), which will be on display at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden in 2026, as part of a project comprising eleven exhibitions -each inspired by a different strand in the tapestry of the museum’s collection.
Inspired by Etruscan art, reception literature and life experience, Pesapane combines drawing, literature and heritage in a titillating exhibition and homonymous publication:
The main character is a modern and very young Odysseus and his little brother, who travel by ship with a peculiar crew between past and present in search of lost humanity.
Central is the Etruscan culture, where seafaring, mythology and an open world view come together and the traveler’s curiosity, the stranger who brings enrichment. A personal story that also touches on contemporary themes such as identity and migration and offers a fresh and accessible path for young and old to the Etruscan art and culture.
Besides her autonomous works Pesapane realizes multidisciplinary projects with colleagues from other disciplines: from scientists, philosophers and archeologists, authors such as Arnon Grunberg, Hafid Bouazza, Jean Pierre Rawie, literary critic Piero Boitani, historian Carlo Ginzburg to Professor Emeritus of Material heritage of the natural sciences Dirk van Delft.
Her work is part of museal, corporate- and private art collections and has worked with a wide range of instutions such as Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Museum Huis van het Boek, Literatuurmuseum, Museum het Sterkenhuis | Museum Kranenburgh, Verwey museum, Amsterdam Fashion Week, De God van Nederland, Amsterdam University Press, Cordoba University Press and many more.
elisapesapane.com | Instagram | Facebook
Recent projects and publications
Liefde na Auschwitz (Uitgeverij Zoetzuur)
Elisa Pesapane & Arnon Grunberg
Liefde na Auschwitz, The Movie,
Documentary bij Eva van Heiningen on project by Elisa Pesapane & Arnon Grunberg
What if…? Dialogues between Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Johannes Vermeer (Amsterdam University Press)
Dirk van Delft, Elisa Pesapane
‘t Had gekund: dialogen tussen Antoni van Leeuwenhoek en Johannes Vermeer (Uitgeverij Zoetzuur)
Dirk van Delft & Elisa Pesapane
Dirk van Delft & Elisa Pesapane interview with Coen Verbraak on ‘t Had gekund: dialogen tussen Antoni van Leeuwenhoek en Johannes Vermeer (Oog op Morgen NOS)
