In the sun-lit hills of Alentejo, Herdade da Malhadinha Nova brings architecture, gastronomy, landscape and hospitality into a single, considered whole. Under the direction of Rita Soares, the estate’s art programme has grown into a series of exhibitions and collaborations with Portuguese and international artists — each shaped by a strong sense of place.

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Grace, the new exhibition by Belgian artist Eva Claessens, emerged from one of these encounters. Dividing her time between Uruguay and Europe, Claessens is known for a quiet, instinctive practice — sculptures, drawings and installations that capture gesture, stillness and the fragile tension of a moment. Often drawing by candlelight, she works with real models and allows each piece to take form with a natural, unforced rhythm.

 

The collaboration began with a simple dinner shared with Rita and João. A conversation about beauty, time and creation revealed an immediate affinity, laying the foundation for Grace. Only days later, Claessens arrived at Malhadinha to begin a new body of work conceived specifically for the estate and its landscape.

GRACE BEGAN AS A FEELING

 

How did Grace first take shape for you? When you think back to that initial meeting with the Herdade da Malhadinha Nova team, what emotions do you feel this collaboration grew out of?

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Grace began as a quiet stirring — not yet an image, more like a pulse beneath the surface of thought. When I first met Rita and João, there was a sense of recognition. What I felt in that moment was trust: a spacious, generous trust that gave the work permission to be born slowly, without the pressure of knowing its form in advance. The collaboration grew out of a shared devotion to beauty in its most humble guise.

 

You often say that “feeling comes before seeing”. How does the starting moment of a sculpture or drawing reveal itself to you?

 

The beginning always arrives as an emotion — usually with real-life models. Something moves gently inside me, something weightless yet insistent, as if asking to be held. I recognise it before I understand it. I stay with that feeling until it grows dense enough to take shape. The first mark or gesture in my drawings, and later in my sculptures, is simply a way of recreating that feeling. The work begins the moment I surrender and allow it to guide my hands.

 

THE LIGHT OF ALENTEJO QUIETLY GUIDED THE WORK 

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Grace carries a strong connection to nature alongside marble and bronze. How did the light, texture and rhythm of Alentejo find their way into these works? In what ways did Malhadinha’s setting guide you?

 

Alentejo moves at the tempo of breathing. The light there is honest — it softens and sharpens at once. Malhadinha became a quiet mentor, offering not instructions but presence. The setting didn’t explain the work; it revealed it.

 

What is the relationship between your sources of inspiration and your wider outlook on life? What feeds you most — small everyday moments, nature, relationships, silence?

 

Inspiration, for me, is not an event but a way of paying attention. My outlook on life is shaped by the belief that nothing is too small to contain the infinite. Small things — moments most people walk past: a change in light, a silence between words, a tenderness in someone’s gesture. Nature grounds me; silence clears me; connection softens me. What inspires me most is anything that touches me without asking for attention.

BEAUTY REVEALS ITSELF MOST CLEARLY WHEN ISN’T CONFINED

 

In the Grace text, you mention the idea of “beauty without a frame.” What does this notion mean to you personally? Where do you encounter this kind of beauty in daily life?

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Beauty without a frame is beauty that refuses containment. I find it in the in-between spaces: early mornings, quiet rooms, honest conversations, the feeling just before you speak. It’s beauty that arrives gently and stays long after. It doesn’t announce itself; it simply happens. It’s the kind of beauty you feel before you have time to describe it. To me, this beauty is a form of truth. It has no borders and does not ask to be admired. It lives in unpolished moments — when nothing strives to be more than what it is.

 

A shared way of living — through art, food, landscape and ritual. How would you describe the relationship between art and place in this exhibition at Malhadinha? And how has this experience shaped you personally?

 

At Malhadinha, art does not stand apart from life; it circulates within it. The exhibition is not an interruption of the landscape but an extension. Art, food, the rhythm of the estate, the rituals woven into each day — together they create a kind of living ecosystem. Experiencing my work in this environment taught me something essential: that art becomes most alive when it is allowed to converse with its surroundings, when it becomes part of a shared way of being rather than a solitary statement. It reminded me that art is not just something I make — it’s something I live within.