Taiyo Shimizu Larenas is a painter based in The Hague, currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and a participant at De Ateliers (2025–2027). Rooted in a formative experience of cultural dissonance after moving countries as a child, their work explores emotional states like despair, fear, and vulnerability through translucent, fragmented figures rendered in layered oil paint. Using a process of applying and removing diluted paint, Shimizu Larenas seeks to reveal “apparitions of the soul,” translating intangible aspects of the human condition into quiet, psychological landscapes that confront beauty within discomfort.