“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
“Forget Me Not” Live Performance & Closing Reception
RSVP events@untitled-space.com
The Untitled Space is opening the debut solo exhibition of Swedish-born, Brooklyn-based artist, performer, and BDSM professional Helena Calmfors, “Helena Calmfors: Floral Disciplines,” with an artist reception to take place from 6pm – 8pm on October 23rd. The exhibit, curated by Indira Cesarine, brings together Calmfors’ distinctive practice spanning watercolor, photography, and performance, exploring queer identity, eroticism, and power through a feminist and subversive lens, and will be on view from October 23 – November 7, 2025. The exhibit will close with a live performance titled “Forget Me Not” on November 7th from 6-8pm.
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.
“FORGET ME NOT” LIVE PERFORMANCE
Closing Reception of “Floral Disciplines”
November 7, 2025 | 6–8 PM
The Untitled Space, NYC
RSVP events@untitled-space.com
Helena Calmfors will present “Forget Me Not,” a live performance featuring a candle wax painting on a human canvas, assisted by Hawthorne and Mistress Payne. Taking place on November 7th, from 6-8 p.m., during the closing reception of her solo exhibition “Floral Disciplines,” the performance continues Calmfors’ exploration of desire, endurance, and devotion through the visual and physical language of BDSM. The act of dripping hot wax onto skin becomes both a ritual of control and a gesture of care—each motion deliberate, each mark a meditation on trust, power, and intimacy.
Merging heat, ritual, and floral motifs, “Forget Me Not” transforms wax play—a BDSM practice involving temperature and sensation—into a poetic expression of vulnerability and beauty. The performance will unfold as a living painting, where body and art become inseparable, the boundaries between artist, subject, and audience dissolving. Calmfors’ work often confronts the complexities of queer identity and visibility, and here, she extends that dialogue through the immediacy of performance. Through this ephemeral exchange of pain and surrender, “Forget Me Not” invites viewers to witness art as an act of transformation.
About The Untitled Space
Founded in 2015 by artist and curator Indira Cesarine, The Untitled Space is a contemporary art gallery located in Tribeca, New York. The gallery is dedicated to presenting thought-provoking exhibitions that challenge societal norms and amplify marginalized voices, with a particular emphasis on social justice, activism, and gender equality. Over the past decade, The Untitled Space has presented over 50 exhibitions, showcasing the work of more than 500 artists who use their creative platforms to inspire and empower others.
Socials: @helenacalmfors @untitledspaceny
