'Perhaps I’m trying to make my paintings look like my impulse to paint them.' - Ida Ekblad, 2023. Galerie Max Hetzler, London, is pleased to announce EAT AN EGGPLANT an exhibition of new work by Ida Ekblad, opening in June 2026. Coinciding with Gallery Weekend London, the exhibition takes a distinctly painterly approach to a wide range of media, spanning oil on linen, watercolour on paper, enamelled iron, hand-painted bronze, and glasswork. A large lantern made from melted glass will hang at the entrance of the gallery, casting diffracted light across the space. The row of eight windows will be...
'Perhaps I’m trying to make my paintings look like my impulse to paint them.' - Ida Ekblad, 2023.
Galerie Max Hetzler, London, is pleased to announce EAT AN EGGPLANT an exhibition of new work by Ida Ekblad, opening in June 2026. Coinciding with Gallery Weekend London, the exhibition takes a distinctly painterly approach to a wide range of media, spanning oil on linen, watercolour on paper, enamelled iron, hand-painted bronze, and glasswork.
A large lantern made from melted glass will hang at the entrance of the gallery, casting diffracted light across the space. The row of eight windows will be covered by classic lace half-curtains you see in old cafés – 'tendine a mezza finestra' – designed by Ekblad specifically for this space. The painted bronzes have dining tables as plinths, and the tables are flanked by her Painters Benches, sculptural furniture in cast iron and polyurethane that she describes as ‘palettes like fossils in amber, trapped beneath your ass cheeks.’ Rebelling against painting’s ostensible demand for flatness, the exhibition encapsulates the artist’s poetic and interdisciplinary approach to imagemaking. Ekblad’s images are also things, and these things become vessels for her imagination.
Ida Ekblad (b. 1980, Oslo) is one of the most compelling artists working today. Based in Oslo, Norway, her work spans multiple mediums, often blurring the lines between painting and sculpture.
