Eloïse Van der Heyden — MUE(S) — Catherine Putman Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In about 2 months: September 5 → October 24, 2026

The Putman Gallery is delighted to present MUE, the fourth solo exhibition by Eloïse Van der Heyden.

For this first monographic exhibition in the gallery’s new space, the artist deploys widely diverse media — imprints, drawings, ceramics, bronze — for her works, which enter into conversation around the theme of shedding or metamorphosis.

Sculpture plays a central role in the exhibition, revolving around the figures of Melusine, Medusa and the snake. The major piece is a lost-wax cast in bronze representing Melusine. According to the medieval legend popularised by Jean d’Arras in the late fourteenth century, Melusine is a sprite that Lord Raymondin de Lusignan married, on the condition of never seeking to see her on Saturdays, the day when she would withdraw to take her bath alone. Plagued by doubt, her husband spied on her, despite his promise, and discovered her metamorphosised form: a body ending in a serpent’s tail. Betrayed, Melusine fled with a heart-wrenching cry and became a winged creature, forever condemned to roam. A figure of feminine duality and secrecy, she embodies the ultimate theme of metamorphosis: a being that changes form, who must conceal a part of herself, and who is transformed in turn by the revelation of this alter ego. Eloïse Van der Heyden adopts this figure as an obvious symbol of shedding — the vital change of skin and form needed to continue to exist.

A Medusa’s head is added to this examination of the female figures of metamorphosis. The theme of the snake, the animal of mutation par excellence, pervades the exhibition, with an attention paid to surface effects: enfumage (painting with fire), oxidation and glazes are all procedures that inscribe transformation within the material itself.

Eloïse Van der Heyden’s imprints arise from real, physical masters, to which she applies ink directly, before passing them under a lithographic press, thus fixing the trace of a metamorphosised object as an image. Textiles or plants — nylon stockings, ferns, condoms — these imprints are characteristic of the artist’s world, which retains the sensuality and trace of bodies and plants, as close as possible to their epidermis.

Finally, there are drawings interspersed throughout the exhibition: intimate portraits combining contemporary figures and those inspired by classical statuary. For Eloïse Van der Heyden, making an artwork is in itself a kind of shedding: each creation transforms the material as much as it transforms the artist herself, giving rise to something more accurate, more accomplished.

Through this plurality of mediums and references, MUE invites us to think about transformation not as a rupture, but as a vital principle — the necessity of shedding old skin to continue to be oneself.