Ēlena Ēto

Ēto’s artistic practice is rooted in a deep relationship with time, memory, and material. Growing up in a familyof antique dealers, she developed an early sensitivity to objects shaped by age, use, and history. The hunt forantique treasures never stopped; today, she integrates ancient finds into her paintings and sculptures, preservingold stories while allowing new ones to emerge.

She works with paper, stone powder, found wood, precious metals, and antique Japanese fabrics, reactivatingand transforming these materials. Each piece becomes a tactile archive of time, creating an intimate exchangebetween artist and observer. The layered surfaces generate a depth that feels geological rather than decorative, asif the works had slowly grown instead of being produced.

Themes of nature and sustainability remain central to her practice — not as slogans, but as lived principles. Alongside conventional paints, she uses self-made stains produced through the cooking of plants, as well as ash, ground stones, and metals, to achieve a surface language closely connected to natural processes. At the same time, she produces almost no waste, striving to repurpose nearly everything she uses.

In dialogue with wabi-sabi’s embrace of imperfection and minimalism’s reduction to essentials, her work avoidsnarrative and symbolism in favor of presence and material resonance. The surfaces are not meant to be readquickly; they create a meditative silence and invite proximity and patience.

Through exhibitions across Europe, her artistic voice opens a space for quiet reflection and connection. Her works encourage viewers to slow down, to feel, and to encounter the poetry that resides in memory, material, and the spaces between.