FLORA: THE ART OF BLOOMING

2025 - May, 10
 

Curated by: VICTO and Uliana Sal
Location: Artseeker Gallery, Brooklyn / New York
 

In an era of climate anxiety and growing urbanization, Flora: The Art of Blooming invites viewers to see the flower not as mere decoration, but as a vessel of memory, cultural codes, and ecological meaning. The exhibition statement emphasizes flora as a symbol of transformation and survival within an urbanized world—bridging the personal and the political, the intimate and the collective.

Curators VICTO and Uliana Sal construct a dialogue between classical botanical motifs and contemporary visual languages—ranging from impasto and impressionistic “gardens” to surreal portraits, collage, and mirror-based metaphor. In their curatorial logic, “blooming” is not only a biological process but also a cultural gesture and an act of inner resistance to the pressures of modern life. The flower becomes a locus where time, fragility, and renewal converge—especially within the urban environment, where nature is simultaneously cultivated and constrained.
 

The project features 16 works by 13 artists — Anastassia Skopp, Yana Ros, Anastasia Gofman, Kakha Esebua, Anna Kober, Iurii Dzhinaliev, Aleksandra Kazantseva, Alexandra Voronina, Evgeniya Polyudova, Maria Vetkalova, Daria Borisova, Olga Tiho, and DiTim. Their diverse practices reveal the floral motif as a living, multi-layered visual language of contemporary art.

Painting, texture, and the impressionist gaze. The series featuring lush bouquets and garden motifs use dense impasto and subtle shifts of light to transform the flower from an image into an event. What matters here is not the copy of nature, but its aura—the rhythm of breath, the fleeting moment of bloom that the viewer perceives physically through texture and light.

Surreal portraiture and myth. Works depicting feminine figures in garden-like settings introduce mythopoetic narratives—such as Lilith, the archetype of freedom and defiance—blending the human and botanical into a single symbolic system. Crowns, tree-like thoughts, birds, and fruit encircling the face turn the portrait into a map of identity, where nature becomes an inner dialogue of the self.
 

Mirrors, gilding, and unity. In the works that incorporate reflection and gold, floral structures “stitch together” a layered perception; from the shimmer of fleeting beauty to the idea of wholeness. Petals act as facets of the same entirety, while the viewer becomes a participant in dissolving the boundaries between self and world. What may appear decorative becomes a meditation on interconnectedness.
 

Collage and media memory. Collaged compositions referencing visual culture—magazines, fashion, and Hokusai’s waves—demonstrate how media translate nature into cultural code. Flowers and seas become metaphors for femininity, summer memory, sensuality, and emotional autonomy.
 

Sincerity, tenderness, and observation. Precise botanical studies, like a peony in full bloom, stand in contrast to expressive works, offering quiet intensity and honesty toward the motif, age, and light. They transform subtlety into a form of truthfulness—a contemplative act in itself.
 

Urban context: the flower as an agent of survival.
The exhibition operates within the tension between the organic and the artificial: against the backdrop of glass and concrete, flowers emerge as models of resilience, adaptation, and resistance. They participate in rituals of memory, mark loss and joy, and mirror cycles of beginning and ending—from personal narratives to collective experience. Here, fragility is not weakness but a form of strength, calling for awareness and responsibility from both the viewer and the institution.

For collectors, the exhibition offers several points of entry:

Tactility and color — works that transform with light and enrich interior spaces.

Iconography and narrative — pieces with symbolic depth and personal storytelling.

Media and collage — contemporary dialogues with the visual field of today.

Contemplative formats — artworks that invite slow looking and create atmospheres of reflection.
 

Flora: The Art of Blooming is a thoughtfully curated project by VICTO and Uliana Sal, in which flora is not an illustration but a way of thinking—about time, memory, the body, and ecology. It reminds us that nature continues to speak its language, even—and perhaps especially—in the city. The exhibition’s relevance lies in its clear curatorial statement: the transformation of the floral motif into a language of contemporary thought and emotional awareness.