Eva Nielsen: DILVIUM

Eva Nielsen, born in 1983, graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2009 with a master’s degree, and studied at Central Saint Martins in London in 2008. Her work has been exhibited at major institutions in France and internationally, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Kunsthaus Baselland, CaixaForum (Madrid and Barcelona), the Musée de l’Orangerie, MAC VAL (Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne), the Musée d’Orsay, the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Xiamen and Beijing), the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Plataforma Revolver, BNKR, Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, and Palazzo Pistorio.

In each of her works, Eva Nielsen interweaves painting, photography, and silkscreen printing. Her practice centers on constantly shifting environments—unstable landscapes, fragments of infrastructure, marginal spaces, and the faint, often camouflaged human figures embedded within them. The interplay between elements, techniques, and materials forms the core of her work, guiding viewers into a perceptual experience charged with tension, where established points of reference are disrupted and the boundaries between the visible and the invisible are continually redefined.

“DILUVIUM” is a term that inherently carries a strong sense of tension and serves as a key to the deeper dimension of Nielsen’s practice. In a geological context, it refers to alluvial layers formed through slow sedimentation over nearly untraceable spans of time; etymologically, it also evokes the image of a “flood”—a force that sweeps in, engulfs the world, and nearly erases everything.

It is within this tension—between gradual accumulation and sudden erasure—that Nielsen unfolds her work. Images are built up through successive layers, while at the same time being continuously eroded and dissolved.