Beauty in the Belly of the Beast

Draakoni Gallery, 2023
With Maria Izabella lehtsaar
Curated by Brigit Arop and Anita Kodanik

 

With their duo exhibition Beauty in the Belly of the Beast, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar & Sarah Nõmm focus on their shared interests in intimacy, sexual self-expression, and various representations of love and violence between people.

The exhibition is built around the concept of the bedroom – a space for rest, dreaming, pleasure, and fear. It is where texts are read that shape us, and where the collaboration between the artists also took place.

The "bedroom activities" explored in this exhibition are socially charged and controversial. The bedroom reveals private and vulnerable aspects of ourselves. It is deeply personal and, at the same time, shared with our closest companions. Not all bedrooms are safe – alongside tenderness, there can also be violence, even under the roof of love.

The artworks reflect these contradictions, intertwining tenderness and harshness within the intimate space of a bedroom. Drawing inspiration from classic stories of beauty and beast, the exhibition reimagines these narratives: what if the prince is more monstrous than the dragon? What if the princess saves herself – or chooses a different path entirely?

Beauty in the Belly of the Beast seeks to open up more nuanced and diverse stories about intimacy, emphasizing the importance of safety and mutual understanding in human relationships.