Eleison ἐλέησον – Naf River

Eleison is an Ancient Greek verb which describes the visceral and intimate Love a mother feels for her child. This verb gives its name to a collection of watercolors which depict this feeling inspired by pictures of migrant mothers. The splashes of color trace the desperation, the challenge, the fears, celebrating the deepest and most powerful Love of all.

In the hands, in the eyes, in the gestures of the portrayed mothers, there is the history which runs through this love and there is love which runs through History. Their names are those of the cities in which they have been immortalized, as if this collection were a new geography.

Eleison is also the invocation addressed to Christ at the beginning of the Catholic and Orthodox rites. Mistranslated as “have mercy”, for millennia these two branches of Christianity have been asking the Kyrie for the quintessential feminine gesture: “Love me with a deep and visceral Love, love me as only a mother can”. Even though Christe is a man, his love transcends genders. Eleison is perhaps the most feminine of loves and certainly the most absolute and radical one.

It is in these difficult crossings, in this migration of human beings made dangerous by other human beings, that an enduring love must be told. Unilateral, unconditional, illogical and therefore invincible: Eleison.

The watercolors are inspired by photos of women immortalized by great photographers such as : Bulent Kilic, Chris Mcgrath, Fred Dufour, Spencer Platt, Armend Nimani, Sam Tarling, Muhammed Muheisen.