In the small square space of Gallery Nippon, up on the second floor of a town building, Elsa Martini’s solo show titled “Poison and Elixir” takes her viewer on a surreal, nostalgic walk reminiscent of 1980s school day walks in socialist and post-socialist Albania. Slightly more than half a dozen moderately sized and small acrylic paintings completed within the past year hang quietly on white walls. Elsa reflects on her own past with deep longing for times both missed and long since passed, bringing strange, forlorn, cross-continental energy into the depicted spaces.
One striking factor in all of these paintings is
her master skill of composition. Specifically, the complexity of composition in
we don't know why we are here. While
the staged nature of her painting in a contemporary context may at first glance
appear uncomfortable, the classical construction feels unmistakably familiar.
In this case, teenage girls with wandering glances appear hanging out together,
but remain emotionally removed from each other in an industrial building amid
an anachronistic landscape outside the window. Elsa’s painting thrives on that
familiarity young women, most likely school-age right about when Elsa herself
moved to Tirana, are positioned in poses suggesting conversation and
interaction. Upon closer observation, however, every single figure appears
implicitly lonely, gazing down or past the others. Elsa’s depictions of such
gazes and poses play up the drama, while the work mirrors a state of being, one
representing both nostalgia for a time since passed and a lost opportunity for
connection. Similarly, Elsa’s color palette reflects on the particularity of
time and place. Granite grays cast a shadow over this body of work. The warm
pink gray colors are reminiscent of riverbank pedestrian paths along the Lanë River
or Tanners’
Bridge (Ura e Tabakëve) testament to the craftsmanship
and ingenuity of 18th-century Ottoman architects in Tirana where so many school girls have spent evenings hanging
out after classes. Elsa uses a distinct palette well known to any Tirana native
evoking the region’s long, dark winters, alongside rains.
Elsa uses paint to visualize the intangible subject
of nostalgia. Even if the viewer is unfamiliar with the setting, there is a
clear, recognizable sense of longing for the past. She doesn’t just yearn for
one time or place, though, but a full bouquet of places, styles, relationships
and interactions. The combination of sweaters, dresses and patterns ranges from
the 1960s to the 1990s and even today, where vintage clothing finds a new life
through thrift shops. For example, a mischievously reclining girl in the
foreground in the family portrait We all
had a green sofa wears a fuchsia pink dress; this dress is reminiscent of a
1980s-era Bloomingdale’s catalog, but the adjacent figure could easily be taken
as a contemporary passerby on the street in Gowanus. The mystery comes from the
artist herself, who finds her models’ outfits in crevices of Brooklyn’s
thrifting shops. The choice is conscious and deliberate as Elsa paints and
repaints every figure to be both relatable yet a standalone monument to time.
How does one capture time in a still image? Elsa seizes these moments by
painting her subjects in passive actions such as reading, stretching or gazing
outward. The painterly application of brushstrokes suggests both
timing and an allusion to classical painting. Elsa Martini is a superbly
skilled painter, who depicts her world with poetic intelligence. She employs an
academic style, showing off the gestural nature of figure painting. Every
stroke reflects a motion, yet everything is precise, with intention. Every
element of application is thorough with realistic and painstakingly depicted
figures to almost Gerhard Richter-esque, blurred backgrounds. She marries
elements of the history of painting within bare square inches of her paintings,
but does so seamlessly and effortlessly. This expert mix of contemporary
and classical style, combined with surreal anachronism transport viewers to
another time and place while maintaining an air of familiarity.
While nostalgia is present, Elsa’s primary
focus is on the unspoken — the silent scenes that carry trauma beneath their
calm surface. She gazes through these images to understand how history lives in
bodies and behaviors, especially those of women and children, who often
remained functional yet invisible within dominant narratives. The exhibition
Poison and Elixir brings together works from different periods and geographies.
The Happiness of Others – Italy (2018), where the series began, drawing from
private archives from the interwar period and World War II, Austria
(2018–2025), continuing this research in dialogue with displacement,
psychoanalysis, and family history. Albania (2018–ongoing), referring to family
archives from the socialist and post-socialist period (1980s–1990s). At centre
of the gallery is Jol How a painting
– drawing flower installation which functions as a living structure rather than
decoration, carrying memory, care, beauty, but also histories of extraction and
control as a constellation. The title refers to a recurring concern in her
practice: the thin line between what sustains life and what slowly erodes it-
socially, emotionally, ecologically, and historically. In dialogue with
painting and drawing, it creates an atmosphere that insists on temporality and
attention.
Abhijeet
Gondkar
January 2026, Mumbai
“Poison & Elixir”,
a solo exhibition by Elsa Martini.
Curated by Abhijeet Gondkar, the exhibition unfolds like a quiet walk through memory, where innocence, tenderness, and unease exist side by side, exploring the thin line between beauty and violence, memory and forgetting - where what sustains life may also quietly erode it, much like Poison and Elixir within the same moment.
Elsa Martini is a Vienna-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, multimedia, and site-specific work. Her work engages with memory, social trauma, gender, and the ways personal and collective histories inhabit space. Her works have been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, biennials, and major art platforms. She is the founder and curator of the NATA International Art Collective.
Exhibition Dates: 31st January – 6th February 2026
Timings: Daily, 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Venue: Nippon Gallery/ 30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers,
Nana Bhai Lane, Flora Fountain, / Fort, Mumbai – 400001
We look forward to your presence. is the founder and curator of the NATA International Art Collective.
