Among These Trees Is My Hiding Spot

Helen Tóth’s Natural Universe On View In Rome

Opened on 4 April, Among These Trees Is My Hiding Spot at Curva Pura Gallery was the first solo show in Rome by Slovakian artist Helen Tóth. The exhibition, which was open until 5 May, was curated by Vittorio Beltrami and Nicoletta Provenzano. Supported by the Slovak Arts Council and the Slovak Institute in Rome, it offered an unprecedented opportunity to get to know her research-based practice via the artworks she created inspired by participating in a Rome-based residency and the international experiences she encountered. The city is present in her works via the many materials and subjects she has incorporated.

The exhibited project combines a group of works made by a variety of techniques, such as drawing, painting, mixed-media and installation. Similarly, she has used many different materials, creating works with oil paint, resin, and various natural objects. Indeed, her unique relationship with nature is at the core of Tóth’s research, which she has translated into a plurality of solutions. 

As the title suggests, the entire exhibition is the result of the spontaneous artist’s fascination with nature. She approaches the subject with a double attitude, which is simultaneously metaphoric and aesthetic. In the first case, nature is an object of representation: it is reformulated via a technique, such as painting and drawing. Regardless of the applied materials, the dialogue between the author and nature acquires symbolic layers, deriving from a lyrical and emotional attitude towards nature. She often incorporates this confrontation into her visual language. From a stylistic perspective, her figurative representation is pushed to the limits of meaning, as can be seen in the painting entitled The Scent of Soil Under the Broken Trees Smells Comforting. 

On the other hand, it is also worth noting the other method with which the artist focuses on nature as both the subject and constituent material of the artwork, as in the installation My Collection of Forest. Here, the reference to nature is not metaphoric but rather actual. Portions of brushwood, earth, shrubs, crushed stone and micro-organisms enclosed in glass containers neatly form the installation. This is an intervention led by a rational and classifying attitude towards material that fits our presumed category of nature. Therefore, this work does not represent nature but forms a dialogue with it, without mediation. 

Although this solo exhibition forms an independent unit, it also transmits an evident plurality, due to the diversity of expressive means used by the artist. She balances this by the recurring, stylised presence of organic, and fractal shapes. As a result, visiting the exhibition enables one to feel a natural connection with the diverse and lively universe, in which beauty and mystery coexist. The mentality of Helen Tóth’s research focused on nature links her to a contemporary sensibility towards the future.

Helen Tóth: Among These Trees Is My Hiding Spot (curators: Nicoletta Provenzano and Vittorio Beltrami), Curva Pura, Rome, 04. 04. 2024. – 05. 05. 2024.

Photos: Albena Nikolova

Proofreader: Martha Kicsiny