Truus Van Bosstraeten

Truus Van Bosstraeten (°1983) graduated in 2005 with a master’s degree in Cultural History. In the first part of her career, she worked as a researcher and educator, writing on topics such as humanitarian aid during the First World War, the history of science, and the history of universities. Themes of collectivity and gender ran as a common thread throughout her work.

As chronic illness — Truus suffers from endometriosis — began to take its toll and interfered with her academic path, she gradually turned to art as her primary medium of expression. Since 2019 she has developed a visual practice with oil on canvas at its core. Painting became her language to revisit and expand on the questions she had long explored as a cultural historian, merging abstraction and figuration into layered reflections on gender, identity, visibility, and power.

In 2023 she initiated the series Invisible Hands, a project that brings overlooked women into focus through portraits that invite dialogue between past and present. This was followed by Invisible Battalions (2024), addressing the ambiguous role of women in military contexts and weaving together references to camouflage, fashion, stereotypes, and resilience. Most recently, in Hard Cover (2025), women appear in helmets — at once shielded and vulnerable, caught between protection and exposure.