Healing Nature brings together a diverse group of artists whose works present scenes on how to engage with nature through meditation and contemplation to provide a better understanding on how to heal in times of conflict and to connect to the inner self, recognizing that humans are all part of a bigger whole. 

The artists in this exhibition recognize that they are all part of Nature, and through their practice they take refuge in it, accessing its healing properties to better contribute to society. Nature is a complex system endowed with intertwined intelligence. 

Since the dawn of time, Nature has offered mankind the opportunity to cure itself on a physical and metaphysical level. Nature can heal through simply being immersed in it, through utilizing its elemental energies, or by consuming its plants, fungi, and animals. All of this can be done as a group or as an individual, following rituals at times guided by shamans or practiced in an intuitive and personal way. 

This knowledge has been ignored in economically advanced societies in favor of a narrowing focus on materialism and rationalism. Many practices have remained on the margins of such societies, while they are retained in a more complete form within indigenous communities where the ancestral knowledge has so far largely survived the forces of modernization. 

This exhibition originated in conversations between curator Omar Lopez-Chahoud and artist Matteo Callegari. The artists in the show engage in a dialogue with creation as they access it through their lived experiences. Their distinct art practices offer a glimpse of how each person’s path toward an understanding of our personal essence leads us toward something bigger that can hold and heal us, helping to build a better understanding of ourselves. 

Omar López-Chahoud has been artistic director and curator of UNTITLED since its inception in 2012. As an independent curator, López-Chahoud has curated and co- curated numerous exhibitions in the United States and internationally. He has participated in curatorial panels at Artists’ Space, Art in General, MoMA PS1, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. López-Chahoud holds MFAs from the Yale University School of Art and the Royal Academy of Art in London.