Whispers of Mother Earth - Exhibition Alejandra Abad Art

Vernissage: Friday, 6 November 2026, 7 pm

Kempinski Palace Engelberg

On view until Friday, December 4th

Whispers of Mother Earth brings together abstract paintings in acrylic and oil on canvas by Alejandra Abad, alongside a series of moon jars created in collaboration with the artist Alexander Jakob. Conceived in the wake of a journey through the Ecuadorian Amazon and during Abad's residency at Kempinski Palace Engelberg, the exhibition reflects a sustained practice of attention: Abad approaches landscape less as a subject to be depicted than as a presence to be listened to.

For Abad, who is Swiss-Ecuadorian, the journey carried a personal resonance. In Ecuador she encountered Indigenous cosmologies in which Mother Earth is understood not as a distant deity but as the living whole that sustains and nourishes all beings. What struck the artist was less a belief system than a relationship: a reciprocity with the land that amounts to a form of ecological knowledge.

Back in Switzerland, Abad carried this attentiveness into the Alpine landscape of Engelberg and the Titlis. Mountains, rivers and glaciers became her interlocutors. In the paintings, layers of acrylic and oil build dense, rhythmic surfaces, driven by the energy of music and movement that has long informed her practice and holding the memory of both rainforest and glacier. The moon jars, thrown by Jakob and painted by Abad, take up a vessel form rooted in Korean ceramic tradition and prized for its subtle, imperfect roundness. Their open, receptive volumes echo the exhibition's central gesture of listening, while Abad carries her visual language from canvas into three dimensions.

The exhibition poses a quiet but urgent question: what might change if we listened to the Earth with greater reverence?

About the artist

Alejandra Abad is a Swiss-Ecuadorian artist whose abstract paintings, shaped by music, dance and nature, are marked by intensity and emotional charge. She has exhibited in Switzerland, the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 2024 she presented her first solo exhibition at Fiore di Pietra, Mario Botta's building on Monte Generoso. Exhibitions in 2025 included The Chedi Andermatt, Jeddah, and Soho House during Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2026 she expanded her practice into painting on ceramics and was invited to give a live painting performance at a Switzerland Tourism event at the Bellagio, Las Vegas. Her work has been featured in British Vogue, and she has collaborated with the Swiss brand On.

A graduate of EHL Hospitality Business School, Abad donates a portion of her sales through the Swiss association Cuisine Sans Frontières to El Fogón, a project in the Ecuadorian Amazon that supports education in gastronomy and tourism.

RSVP through this link until October 31st. Guests may also reserve a table for dinner at Cattani Restaurant following the opening. A special room rate at Kempinski Palace Engelberg is available for the night of the vernissage. Contact the artist for more information.