Hardcore Gentleness

Vent Space Gallery, 2022

With Maria Izabella Lehstaar
Curators: Anita Kodanik, Brigit Arop

 

Hardcore Gentleness unravels like a tangled ball of yarn, leading us through themes of intimacy, control, and sexuality with the experimental flair of J Dilla’s “So Far to Go”—where the phrase hardcore gentleness is borrowed. This is the first duo exhibition by Maria Izabella Lehtsaar and Sarah Nõmm, reflecting on girlhood, self-image, mental health, and the dance between gaining and relinquishing control.

 

The show highlights both artists’ shared sensitivity and tactile approach to material. From soft heart-shaped chains in pastel hues to thick ropes braided from human hair, the works explore opposites: light and heavy, soft and hard, safe and unsafe. They question how material and bodily work help navigate trauma, tradition, and desire—and how those desires find community.

Lehtsaar and Nõmm challenge the way feminist and queer aesthetics are often reduced to fetish or superficial readings. Hardcore Gentleness resists these misinterpretations, offering instead a deeper look into the universal longing for safety, self-connection, and joy—even if that joy is tangled up with rage, confusion, or the urge to dance.

 

You’ve come so far—you’ve got so far to go.