ETEL ADNAN, MILTON AVERY, ILSE D´HOLLANDER: LOOKING OUTWARDS TO LOOK INWARDS

VICTORIA MIRO Venice is delighted to present Looking Outwards to Look Inwards, a three-person exhibition of paintings by Etel Adnan, Milton Avery and Ilse D’Hollander.

March 14 - April 18, 2026

This exhibition features three artists whose lives spanned the twentieth century, working across different generations and geographies yet united by their distilled observations of place and the journeys that inspired them.

None of the paintings on view were made en plein air; the artists inhabited and experienced landscapes only to draw on them from memory back in the studio. In their canvases, the living landscape is translated into simplified, sometimes geometric, though always intensely charged passages of colour.

For Milton Avery (1885–1965), the long, hot summers on the East Coast of the United States were a constant source of inspiration; for Etel Adnan (1925–2021), it was the memories of her childhood in Lebanon or the fertile valleys of California, where she settled in the 1950s. Ilse D’Hollander (1968–1997) spent hours walking and cycling across the agricultural plains, rivers, and canals of East Flanders, then returning to her remote studio where she captured her journeys in paintings.

In her short life, Ilse D’Hollander (1968–1997) created an intelligent, sensual, and impactful body of work. His canvases and works on paper, often small in format, are replete with references to everyday life. With an expressive yet minimalist touch, his works resonate with the same power as a profound and reflective exploration of the act of painting. D'Hollander drew inspiration from his impressions and experiences of places, particularly the Flemish countryside, where he spent the last and most productive years of his life.

While alluding to real objects and places, as well as specific chromatic qualities, tones, and light, D'Hollander's paintings are rarely immediately recognized as simple landscapes. Rather, they can be interpreted as a series of accumulated visions, adjustments, and layers: a record of the artist's mental processes.