Hella Kalkus

Hella Kalkus is a German painter living and working between the Côte d’Azur and Italy. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bremen and shaped by an earlier background in journalism and fashion, her work moves between figuration and landscape, memory and direct observation.

Her recent paintings are rooted in the Mediterranean—its gardens, coastlines and shifting light—drawing from places along the Riviera between the Côte d’Azur, Liguria and Tuscany. These landscapes, often marked by botanical abundance and historical resonance, become terrains where perception, emotion and recollection merge.

Working with layered brushwork, blurred contours and unstable focus, Kalkus creates paintings that oscillate between presence and disappearance. Her figurative works remain as echoes within these atmospheres—traces of intimacy, longing and inner narrative—while her landscapes open a dialogue between northern distance and southern sensuality.

University of the Arts Bremen

2014 collective exhibition Castello di San Sebastiano da Po, Italy
2015 solo Exhibition "Flash-lights and shadows of a backstage"
Milan, Italy Art Gallery CEContemporary
2017 "Marry Nour" collective Exhibition Spazio Nour, Milan Italy
2018 "No Place no.4" collective exhibition, Santo Stefano di
Magra, Italy
2018 curating and exhibiting at "Arcolart" Art Festival, Liguria Italy
2018 "Light Chain" collective exhibition, Spazio Nour Milan, Italy
2018-2023 several collective exhibitions Pietrasanta, Italy
2023 "Green Spirit" collective exhibition Castello di Costigliole
d'Asti, Piedmont, Italy
2023 "Mediterraneum" solo exhibition Menton, France
2024 "Botanica" solo exhibition Villa Hanbury, Ventimiglia Italy
2025 "Oasis" solo exhibition Villa Hanbury, Ventimiglia Italy
2025 "Subtropia" solo exhibition Mammo Monteggiori/Lucca Italy
2025 Collective Exhibitions Intrecciarte Gallery, Pietrasanta, Italy
2026 Collective Exhibition "Courbes" AIAP Monte Carlo, Monaco
2026 "Memories of Light" solo exhibition Villa Hanbury, Ventimiglia, Italy

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