Dio Horia presents Venus in Us, a solo exhibition by Raúl de Nieves. The exhibition will run from June 20 to September 5, 2026.
Opening reception: June 20, 12:00 - 18:00.
Venus in Us unfolds as an immersive environment where the body becomes a site of transformation, devotion, accumulation, and exchange. Moving between sculpture, painting, beadwork, textile constructions, and installation, the exhibition approaches Venus not as a singular mythological figure, but as a living force embedded within systems of desire, labor, ritual, beauty, and survival.
Throughout the exhibition, materials appear to grow rather than simply decorate. Beads accumulate like cells, crystals, wounds, or offerings; surfaces expand through repetition and touch, carrying traces of time, memory, and care. These forms suggest a world in constant becoming, where transformation is not an event but a condition of existence. The works move between the sacred and the everyday, proposing beauty as something that emerges through persistence, vulnerability, and devotion.
Underlying the exhibition is a meditation on hidden truths—those forces that shape our lives beneath the surface of appearance. Venus becomes a figure through which to consider the unseen currents of longing, faith, loss, and renewal that accompany every act of becoming. Like a star obscured by daylight, these truths do not disappear when unseen; they remain present, waiting to reveal themselves through moments of recognition, ritual, and transformation.
Within Venus in Us, change is understood as a constant companion. Beauty and loss arrive together, desire becomes a vehicle for growth, and uncertainty opens onto possibility. The exhibition suggests that what we seek outside ourselves often mirrors something already unfolding within. Rather than offering fixed answers, the works function as portals—thresholds through which viewers may encounter their own processes of transformation.
Through acts of making that blur distinctions between ornament, protection, healing, and celebration, Venus in Us proposes the body as both vessel and cosmos: a place where personal histories intersect with collective myths, and where hidden truths emerge not as conclusions, but as doorways into new ways of seeing, feeling, and becoming.
Raúl de Nieves has presented major solo exhibitions internationally at institutions including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, as well as most recently at APALAZZO Gallery in Brescia. His work has been included in major international exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial (2017) and documenta 14, as well as presentations at organizations including MoMA PS1, Performa, The High Line, Hauser & Wirth, ICA Philadelphia, The Watermill Center, The Kitchen, Pioneer Works, and Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles.
His work is held in public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. Alongside his institutional presence, his practice has received extensive international editorial coverage, including a cover feature in Frieze Magazine and a recent interview in Mouse Magazine.
