Venus Retrograde
An exhibition by Sylvia Nagy

In Venus Retrograde, Sylvia Nagy reimagines femininity through a surreal lens — where time folds, myth unravels, and the body becomes both shrine and storyteller. Working with acrylic, collage, and found objects, Nagy weaves together vintage erotica, natural landscapes, and pop cultural detritus to create dreamscapes that are as playful as they are defiant.

Here, nude figures bask beneath waterfalls, lounge across beaches facing melting icebergs, or merge with blossoms that sprout directly from their skin. Her world is rich with contradiction: lush yet stark, humorous yet haunting, nostalgic yet subversively modern. By repurposing archival imagery and kitsch materials, Nagy dismantles the patriarchal gaze — not by rejecting it, but by distorting it into something wild, weird, and wholly her own.

The retrograde of Venus — a planetary reversal associated with emotional upheaval and revisioning love — becomes a metaphor for the artist's process: looking back not to idealize the past, but to reclaim, rearrange, and reimagine it. What emerges is a sureal paradise where the female form is no longer passive muse, but active force — untamed, self-possessed, and eternally in bloom.