Elena Adamou Finds Sacred Icons in the Weeds Nobody Names

Magnus Tempus 360° and primopiano Presented Iconographies in Montesilvano

primopiano and Magnus Tempus 360° presented Elena Adamou's Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures in Montesilvano, curated by Martina Marini Misterioso and Halime Eleni Özdemir di Larusso, through 26 June 2026.

An iconographic herbarium of wild Mediterranean plants, elevated from background to subject.

Elena Adamou spent 2025's ECOSCAPES residency in Nicosia tracing what grows in the cracks urbanisation forgets, then brought that research to primopiano, a house-turned-exhibition-space in Montesilvano.

What she found there was not decoration but resistance, small and persistent.

Curatorial Text by Erica Romano

Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures

Iconography (from the Greek eikón, ‘image’, and graphìa, ‘writing’) is a discipline within Art History and Archaeology that identifies the poses, gestures and clothing of the subjects depicted, along with the objects, animals and plants that characterise them.

"The object observed with intensity becomes a subject that does not need our gaze to exist, thus revealing a reality that precedes us, a Nature that knows how to see and that had already planned to remain amidst the cracks of our existence." — Erica Romano

The solo exhibition Iconographies; Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures by the artist Elena Adamou (Nicosia, Cyprus, 1991) turns the relationship with ‘natural objects’ on its head: at the heart of a thorough process of observation and research lies an iconographic herbarium of small plants whose existence is not recognised as serving any functional purpose in relation to human presence.

Adamou’s relationship with Nature – which is reflected in the very nature of her practice – is an intimate one, rooted in the perception of time as an inner presence that sets the rhythm for the migration and wandering flow of her ideas.

Consequently, in this work—which places human and natural processes on an equal footing—the artist shifts focus from the ‘what’ to the ‘who’, portraying wild and endemic Mediterranean plants, now elevated to the status of subjects, which tell stories of autonomy and independence, having grown in arid crevices and hidden corners left untouched by the layered processes of modern urbanisation.

The images and various narrative approaches chosen for the exhibition present a variety of species within these two categories alone, without any intention of cataloguing them, but rather by highlighting a quality that renders them both mystical and mythological creatures, whose postures are genuine forms of creative resistance.

The sacred, almost regal air that the plants take on in the skilful and refined guise that Adamou crafts for them through embroidery, photography and site-specific installations is a clear invitation to contemplation, a meditative act that brings together the observed object and the observer within a single overarching vision, thereby reversing their roles: the object observed with intensity becomes a subject that does not need our gaze to exist, thus revealing a reality that precedes us, a nature that sees and intends to dwell and remain amidst the cracks of our existence.
Erica Romano

Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures

The title Tiny Resistance, Crevices and Other Creatures has its own history and derives, in fact, from the name of the project developed during the 2025 edition of the ECOSCAPES residency program organized by Magnus Tempus 360° in Nicosia (Cyprus), of which the exhibition at the primopiano space in Montesilvano (PE) is one of the first extensions, having brought to fruition here part of the research initiated in Cyprus.

The exhibition’s subtitle, therefore, helps us better define the sphere in which the artist operates: small acts of resistance, interstitial spaces, otherworldly creatures, beyond the human, beyond the visible.

Taken together, these words reveal a particular approach to reality, suggesting a way of looking at the outer surface of things that lingers carefully, in slow, deliberate moments, in order to connect with something deeper that goes beyond appearances.

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