I Once Saw You There: Eline Martherus

In ‘I Once Saw You There’, Eline Martherus presents a new body of work exploring grief as a place rather than an emotion. Emerging from a guided meditation following the loss of her mother, the series began with an attempt to revisit and reshape a single memory, and unfolded as a collection of imagined landscapes where recollection, absence, and love quietly converge. For years, Martherus’ work has explored the rhythms and cycles of nature, translating processes of growth, movement, rupture, and transformation into abstract compositions that feel both intuitive and alive. Like ecosystems, Martherus' compositions are built through dissolution and reconfiguration. Forms surface and disappear, colours adapt and migrate, and meaning unfolds gradually. Central to this exploration is the artist’s use of natural indigo, a pigment that she produces herself, grounding each work in a direct physical relationship with the natural world. The indigo settles into the linen like an ink stain, flowing organically to create patterns that recall roots, waterways, fibres, and shifting currents. While rooted in personal history, this body of work extends beyond autobiography: it "belongs to the world, because everyone is exiled from something, a country, a childhood, a parent, a language, a first love."