“HELENA CALMFORS: FLORAL DISCIPLINES”
SOLO SHOW
October 23 – November 7, 2025
The Untitled Space
45 Lispenard Street, New York, NY 10013
Opening Reception:
Thursday, October 23, 2025 | 6–8pm
RSVP events@untitled-space.com
The Untitled Space is pleased to present “Helena Calmfors: Floral Disciplines,” a debut solo exhibition of new works by Swedish-born, Brooklyn-based artist, performer, and BDSM professional Helena Calmfors, curated by Indira Cesarine. On view from October 23 – November 7, 2025, the exhibition brings together Calmfors’ distinctive practice spanning watercolor, photography, and performance, exploring queer identity, eroticism, and power through a feminist and subversive lens.
Building on her past participation in the gallery’s acclaimed group exhibitions REBEL (2022) and UPRISE 2025: The Art of Resistance, Calmfors returns to The Untitled Space with an intimate and provocative body of work that confronts the complexities of desire and agency. Through her practice, she transforms the visual language of BDSM into a radical framework for exploring identity and the politics of visibility.
“My practice is centered around queerness, femdom, and BDSM lifestyles,” Calmfors explains. “Through the lens of BDSM, I explore how desire, power, and objectification coexist, particularly within queer femme identity. My work challenges the patriarchal and heteronormative frameworks that have long shaped how lesbian identity is viewed, performed, and policed.”
Her watercolors, at once sensual and defiant, merge delicate floral imagery with fetish iconography—flowers, cuffs, masks, and other coded symbols of submission and control. Rendered in bright, fluid pigments, the works juxtapose the soft unpredictability of watercolor with the strict choreography of BDSM, capturing the push and pull between vulnerability and command. “The softness and unpredictability of the medium allow the process of painting to mirror the tension between control and trust,” she notes.
Calmfors’ photographic self-portraits continue this negotiation of power and femininity. Through the lens, she becomes both subject and orchestrator—donning latex, lace, and leather, often entwined with flowers, veils, and ritualistic gestures. These compositions blur the line between eroticism and empowerment, transforming the act of looking into an exchange of authority. As she describes, “At the core of my work is the act of creating intimate scenes and experiences. That can mean performance, photography, or painting—but it’s always about the tension between softness and control.”
Her work also speaks to the politics of censorship and erasure in contemporary culture. “With the increasing censorship and erasure of queer identity and erotic content on social media and financial platforms—as well as the trans- and homophobic political trends—it is becoming more important than ever to challenge the heteronormative and misogynistic structures,” Calmfors says. Each piece becomes both reflection and resistance—a refusal to be sanitized or silenced.
“Helena’s work embodies the kind of fearless vulnerability that defines contemporary feminist art,” notes curator Indira Cesarine. “Her ability to merge softness with strength—to make the erotic both tender and political—invites a necessary dialogue about control, identity, and power. It’s a radical act of reclamation in a world that still seeks to confine the female and queer gaze.”
Calmfors has previously exhibited across the United States, including Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, The Locker Room in New York, and Satellite Art Show in Miami Beach, as well as performing at venues such as House of Yes in New York. Her debut monograph, Forget Me Not, was published by Circa Press in 2025, further cementing her as a vital voice in contemporary queer and feminist art.
At The Untitled Space, her latest works invite viewers to witness the erotic not as spectacle but as transformation—to recognize power in tenderness, and rebellion in beauty. In Calmfors’ world, domination and devotion intertwine; every brushstroke, every photograph becomes an intimate performance of agency and selfhood.
Through this body of work, Helena Calmfors reimagines what it means to look, to desire, and to be seen—on her own terms.
Socials: @helenacalmfors @untitledspaceny