Painting - A Changed Environment
Messums West 17 January - 9 March 2026
Painting - A Changed Environment:
17 Jan - 9 Mar 2026
I’m delighted to begin the year by being included in this beautifully curated exhibition, bringing together 38 international painters responding to ideas of changing beauty, ecology, and sustainability, alongside themes of place, memory, and identity. Together, the works reveal how our connections to the natural world can inspire both understanding and hope. I’m thrilled to have four paintings included in this spectacular group show.
The exhibition runs 17 January – 9 March 2026 at Messums West, housed within its extraordinary 13th-century tithe barn. No words or images on social media can truly capture the unique atmosphere of this space; it’s something you feel the moment you step inside.
If you find yourself in this beautiful corner of the world before 9 March, I warmly encourage you to visit.
The artists taking part are:
Elizabeth Abel, Molly Rose Butt, Lihong Bai, Kate Bentley, Kate Blee, Simon Carter, Kels Coker, Eniko Czigany, Eleanor Dorrien Smith, Kate Dorrough, Sara Dudman, Louise Fairchild, Caroline Frood, Prachi Gawas, Stephen Greenberg, Lydia Halcrow, Beatrice Hassell-McCosh, Maria Hatling, Jean Huang, Emily Imeson, Katie Kaur, Mya Kerner, Carol Krosner, Geoff Diego Litherland, Katy Lucas, Pádraig Mac Cana, Harry Martin, Binny Matthews, Rae Melody, Meredith Owen, Rodion Petrof, Claudia Pons Bohman, Yasmine Robinson, Elena Shkvarkina, Marion Thomson, Stephen Turner, Geraldine van Heemstra, Joe Warrior-Walker and Mary West.
Messums West
Place Farm, Court St,
Tisbury, SP3 6LW
Opening hours:
Thursday - Saturday: 11:00am - 5:00pm
Innermost ©Maria Hatling 2023 / Acrylic on canvas, 104 x 164 cm framed.
In The Clearing ©Maria Hatling 2023 / Acrylic on canvas, 104 x 164 cm framed.
The story behind the paintings In the Clearing and Innermost unfolds quietly and over time.
After an extended period of working on highly structured, heavily laboured paintings, these two works emerged late at night, using a myriad of colours already mixed for an earlier body of work. They were painted quickly, almost instinctively, in a moment when I could access my inner world, or inner landscape, if you will.
When I returned to the paintings months later, I realised they were far more aligned with what I was truly feeling than the more controlled works that preceded them. They carry a sense of urgency: a call to hasten our search for more sustainable ways of inhabiting this planet, and to leave a significantly lighter footprint behind us. This urgency is echoed in the speed of their making and in the delicacy, even fragility, of the mark-making.
I have heard other painters, such as the great Stanley Whitney, speak of this phenomenon of entering a fertile, unconscious state that often arises late at night, at the end of long studio sessions.
Innermost and In the Clearing were made in 2023 and marked a significant shift in my practice. From this point onward, my colour palette began to lighten, and my mark-making became more fluid, more breathable.
More recently, I encountered images of early works by Rothko in a book at the Tate Modern bookshop, paintings made before his widely recognised abstraction and search for transcendence. My own journey, or dance, with abstraction has since evolved into a deeply personal visual language, incorporating abstracted Hangul and more densely marked, stitched-together surfaces, what I now think of as the skin of the painting.
Yet these works remain central, and I am delighted they have been included in the Messums West show - Painting - A Changed Environment.
They still feel deeply true to how I feel about our need to lighten our footprint whilst we are here on this planet.
They formed the tunnel through which I was able to travel toward another destination within my practice. This sense of interiority and emergence is also carried in their titles, Innermost and In the Clearing, suggesting both a turning inward and the quiet arrival at an open space.
Passage I ©Maria Hatling 2024 / Acrylic on canvas 52.5 x 67.5 cm framed
Passage II ©Maria Hatling 2024 / Acrylic on canvas 52.5 x 67.5 cm framed
The Story Behind Passage I and Passage II
Passage I and Passage II were created during my 2024 Xenia residency in North Hampshire, hosted by Bianca Roden and her family. Both paintings were made during Storm Isha, a powerful weather system that brought violent winds and heavy rain across the UK.
Isha left thousands without power overnight. Although the residency itself did not experience a power cut, the intensity of the storm was impossible to ignore. Wind howled around the building while rain intensified, drumming heavily against the studio’s roof windows. The sound and force of the storm created an atmosphere that encouraged reflection, particularly on its possible connection to climate change and the growing extremity of our natural environment.
The colour palette of both works is directly inspired by the North Hampshire landscape and the natural surroundings of the purpose-built studio. Earthy tones, muted greens, and shifting atmospheric colours reflect the land, the weather, and the emotional weight of being immersed in that moment.
This residency marked a significant shift in my studio practice, as it was the first residency I had ever undertaken. The time, space, and solitude I experienced allowed me access to a part of my practice that had previously felt unreachable. Working without interruption opened a deeper level of focus, reflection, and vulnerability within my process.
Xenia will always hold a special place for me. It was where I sat down and read my adoptive mum’s diaries for the first time, and where I met Paloma and Shirin, people who may become lifelong friends. I will forever be grateful for the time, care, and creative freedom I experienced there.
For any sales enquiries, please contact: Gabriele@messums.org
TERRA
I am deeply honoured that my etching ‘The Joining of Two’ is part of this year’s TERRA exhibition, now in its third edition. TERRA is the first monumental contemporary art exhibition bringing together leading international artists and galleries in the heart of Burgundy’s UNESCO World Heritage vineyards. The exhibition unearths dialogues between contemporary art, heritage, and winemaking.
‘The Joining of Two’ reflects my personal journey, from being born in South Korea, adopted and raised in Norway, to living and working in the United Kingdom as an adult. The title signifies the merging of different identities and cultures, expressed through layered techniques and materials.
Grounded in the ancient craft of etching yet imbued with a spirit of innovation, the work incorporates hand-painted Korean paper as its foundation. Upon it, the word mother is written in abstracted Hangul, forming the backbone of the composition. The motif of mother refers simultaneously to my biological and adoptive mothers, and Mother Earth herself.
Through this synthesis, the work explores belonging, origin, and connection, unearthing layers of memory and meaning much like a palimpsest. It is both a personal and universal meditation on how our roots, histories, and environments intertwine to shape who we become.
The exhibition is open until 23rd of November 2O25
Register to visit @terraexhibition
Thank you to both Jenn Ellis and Emie Dimond for the invitation to take part in this incredible exhibition .
‘The Joining of Two’, 2024 | Unique aquatint, sugar lift, hand-painted chine collé etching, 63.6 x 82.7 cm
Framed by The Framing Room.
XENIA ARTIST RESIDENCY
I started 2024 with a residency at Xenia.
To start the year in a place where I felt safe to let go and explore my art practice in a different way than what’s possible in my normal life was truly soul-nourishing.
During my time at Xenia, I was able to hear my thoughts and access a way into my work that had not been open before. The mixture of being close to nature and having the time and space to reflect made this possible. My January stay brought a mix of crisp clear sunny winter weather with frost visible during morning walks and other days with the storm Isha roaring outside the studio. All fuelled the experimentation and mark-making happening inside the studio.
An extension of my visual language emerged during my time at Xenia through experimentation and play. I left Xenia with a full heart, new friendships and memories of the landscape that will stay with me for a long time.
Back in London, I am continuing to develop my new series of work started at Xenia with the working title: Pockets, conceal or reveal? Taking the form of paintings, etchings and monoprints.
Pockets, conceal or reveal? This is the working title for my new series of work that I am developing this year. The work will address feelings and thoughts around identity, motherhood and fertility.
My mum’s diaries. She wrote these diaries for the three years it took for her and my father to be approved for adoption and kept writing until I was three.
Looking at motherhood from all angles. Love both Hettie Judah’s books, How not to exclude artist mothers and other parents and On art and motherhood, Pia’s world by Julia Peyton-Jones and Motherhood by Ann Coxon.
Words from my mother’s diaries are making their way into my work. My new series of works (paintings, etchings and monoprints) started at Xenia will explore questions around identity, fertility and motherhood through my lens of being adopted, my mother’s journals and being a mother myself channelled by abstraction.