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Van Eyck

Nathanaëlle Herbelin And there is a place you will not be able to return to

Nathanaëlle Herbelin And there is a place you will not be able to return to
Selected works Installation views

Nathanaëlle Herbelin’s second exhibition at the gallery presents a new series of portraits and interiors that navigate the fragile balance between immediate, everyday experience and the weight of an unsettled world. At once intimate and expansive, these paintings reflect a desire to hold on to moments of connection―small yet significant interactions with friends, neighbours, and family―amidst an undercurrent of grief, uncertainty, and shifting realities. Herbelin’s approach is neither sentimental nor detached; rather, she paints with an acute awareness of how personal and collective histories intertwine. The act of painting becomes a way to ground herself, to acknowledge absence, and to bear witness to both quiet rituals and emotional thresholds.

While Herbelin’s earlier works were characterised by vibrant colours and clearly defined settings, the paintings in this exhibition embrace ambiguity. Figures emerge from undefined or weighty backgrounds, emphasising presence over place, memory over setting. Arie, the artist’s late grandfather from Israel, is painted posthumously from photographs. His depiction resists traditional hierarchies of representation—someone who might not typically be immortalised on canvas is here granted a quiet yet steadfast visibility. Herbelin’s gaze is both tender and unflinchingly honest, stripping away embellishment to reveal the raw intimacy of her subjects.

The absent presence of Herbelin’s late grandfather can also be felt in two of Herbelin’s works depicting Jewish mourning rituals. In Shiva, Herbelin reconstructs, from memory, a bird’s-eye view of her grandfather’s home during shiva, the seven-day mourning period following a funeral. The painting reflects the charged atmosphere of this ritual, in which the bereaved remain at home, marking their loss through time-honoured rituals: sitting on low chairs, covering mirrors, and lighting a candle in remembrance. The second, larger work on this theme, Dîner aux œufs durs [Dinner with Hard-Boiled Eggs], interprets the Se’udat Havra’ah, the meal of condolence that follows a burial. Hard-boiled eggs―along with bagels, lentils and other round foods―are central to this meal, symbolising the cycle of life and renewal. The composition of the painting takes inspiration from Egon Schiele’s Die Freunde (Tafelrunde), groß [The Friends (Round Table), Large], 1918. Just as Schiele painted his own circle of friends gathered around the table, Herbelin populates Dîner aux œufs durs with her own acquaintances as well as imagined figures.

While portraits remain central to Herbelin’s practice, her nuanced depictions of interior spaces are equally poignant in conveying mood and atmosphere, revealing the psychological depths of her subjects. Two interior scenes, in particular, evoke contrasting realities and psychological spaces: one depicting a desolate kitchen, Ustensiles, and the other, Jérémie qui donne le biberon, portraying the artist’s partner, Jérémie, feeding their baby in a hotel room in China where the artist recently completed a residency. The panoramic view framed by the window in the latter painting contrasts starkly with the small, barely visible window in the kitchen, a subtle indicator of confinement and diminished hope. Similarly, the personal possessions on the hotel table stand in contrast to their near-total absence in the kitchen, despite other clues suggesting a recent human presence. The latter painting holds the quiet act of care in tension with the busy, impersonal cityscape beyond, reflecting the contrast between private tenderness and the vastness of the outside world.

The interplay between interior and exterior spaces―both literal and psychological―in this new body of work mirrors the artist’s negotiation of past and present, presence and absence. Whether reconstructing her grandfather’s apartment from memory, capturing the transient intimacy of a shared meal, or painting figures from her neighbourhood, Herbelin’s works resist easy narratives. Instead, her paintings offer a space where the everyday and the existential coexist, where the act of looking itself becomes an act of recognition.

  • The exhibition title comes from the poem Eyes Sadness and Journey Descriptions (עצבות עיניים ותיאורי מסע), from the book Behind All This, Hides Great Happiness (מאחורי כל זה מסתתר אושר גדול) by Yehuda Amichai.

Nathanaëlle Herbelin (b. 1989, Tel Aviv, Israel) obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2016, during which time she was invited to participate in an exchange programme at The Cooper Union, New York. Herbelin’s first solo exhibition in Asia, Feel the pulse, opens at the He Art Museum in Shunde, China (8 March to 8 June 2025). It will showcase the works made during her residency at the museum in 2024. Recent solo exhibitions include Être ici est une splendeur, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2024); À la surface, le fond de l’oeil, French Institute of Tel Aviv (2022); Et peut-être que ces choses n’ont jamais eu lieu, Umm Al Fahem Palestinian Art Center (2021), Devenire Peinture, Yishu 8 prize, George V Art Centre, Beijing (2021); and group exhibitions such as the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (2021); Passerelle Art Center, Brest (2020); the museums of the Abbaye Sainte-Croix (Sables d’Olonnes, 2019); Bétonsalon, Paris (2019); the Beaux-Arts Museum of Rennes (2018), Collection Lambert, Avignon (2017) and Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2017).

Nathanaëlle Herbelin in conversation with Edith Devaney.

Related exhibition

Selected works

  • Mathieu et Melvil, 2024

  • Lunar calendar version 2, 2024

  • Reflets, 2024

  • Lucas, tenue d’apparat, 2024

  • L'architecte, 2024

  • First date

  • Lucas, étude pour cuir, 2025

  • Accouchement 1, 2024

  • Amir, 2024

  • Jérémie donne le biberon, 2024

  • Shiva

  • Gros câlin, 2025

  • Arie, 2024

  • Conséquence non négligeable, 2025

  • Dîner aux œufs durs

  • Ustensiles, 2024

  • Les choses chroniques

  • Ukrainienne, 2022

  • Perroquets, 2021

  • Anesthésie locale, 2025

  • Chambre en cire, 2025

  • Aigrette, 2025

  • Raphaël et Anne-Sophie, 2025

Related artworks

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Mathieu et Melvil, 2024

    oil on canvas
    140 x 130 cm, 55 1/8 x 51 1/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Lunar calendar version 2, 2024

    oil on wood
    17.2 x 19 cm, 6 3/4 x 7 1/2 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Reflets, 2024

    oil on canvas
    33 x 24 cm, 13 x 9 1/2 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Lucas, tenue d’apparat, 2024

    oil on canvas
    146 x 114 cm, 57 1/2 x 44 7/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    L'architecte, 2024

    oil on wood
    110 x 65 cm, 43 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    First date

    oil on wood
    19 x 24 cm, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Lucas, étude pour cuir, 2025

    oil on wood
    38 x 45.8 cm, 15 x 18 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Accouchement 1, 2024

    oil on canvas
    22.3 x 27 cm, 8 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Amir, 2024

    oil on canvas
    22 x 27 cm, 8 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Jérémie donne le biberon, 2024

    oil on wood
    183 x 135 cm, 72 x 53 1/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Shiva

    oil on canvas
    total dimensions: 130 x 194 cm, 51 1/8 x 76 1/2 in.
    two parts, each: 130 x 97 cm, 51 1/8 x 38 1/4 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Gros câlin, 2025

    oil on wood
    18 x 19 cm, 7 1/8 x 7 1/2 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Arie, 2024

    oil on canvas
    220 x 123 cm, 86 5/8 x 48 3/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Conséquence non négligeable, 2025

    oil on canvas
    19.5 x 27.5 cm, 7 5/8 x 10 7/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Dîner aux œufs durs

    oil on canvas
    200 x 230 cm, 78 3/4 x 90 1/2 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Ustensiles, 2024

    oil on canvas
    126 x 150 cm, 49 5/8 x 59 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Les choses chroniques

    oil on wood
    22 x 26 cm, 8 5/8 x 10 1/4 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Ukrainienne, 2022

    oil on wood
    27 x 22 cm, 10 5/8 x 8 5/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Perroquets, 2021

    oil on canvas
    18 x 24.4 cm, 7 1/8 x 9 5/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Anesthésie locale, 2025

    oil on wood
    24 x 33 cm, 9 1/2 x 13 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Chambre en cire, 2025

    oil on wood
    17 x 25 cm, 6 3/4 x 9 7/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Aigrette, 2025

    oil on paper on canvas
    33 x 22.5 cm, 13 x 8 7/8 in.

    Nathanaëlle Herbelin

    Raphaël et Anne-Sophie, 2025

    oil on canvas
    150 x 135 cm, 59 x 53 1/8 in.

Installation views