Beáta Hechtová

*1991 in Prague, CZ, lives and works in Vienna

Studies and residencies

2011–2014: University of West Bohemia, Ladislav Sutnar – Faculty of design and art

2012–2013: residency in Spain, Cuenca – Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Faculty of Fine Arts

2014–2020: University of Applied Arts Vienna – graphics and printmaking

2017–2018: residency in Peru, Lima – Pontificia universidad católica del Peru, Faculty of fine Arts

Exhibitions

7/2025 Enter Art Fair, Copenhagen, Gallery C.A. Contemporary

6/2025 Silver Linings, Galerie C.A. Contemporary, Vienna

1/2025 Group show Touch Nature / Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz

7/2024 Group show Subterránea / La beast gallery, Los Angeles

1/2023 Off Course In Wide / gallery twenty-six, Vienna

9/2022 Heads Or Tales / Favoritenstrasse 137, Vienna

9/2022 Vienna Anthropology Days / International Conference, Vienna

6/2022 Body & Nature / Galerie Rudolf Leeb, Vienna

5/2022 Parallel Editions 2022, Galerie Rudolf Leeb, Vienna

5/2022 R&Art Walk, Das Rund / creative Film Production, Vienna

8/2021 Internationale Grafik Triennale Frechen, DE

5/2021 Parallel Vienna Editions 2021, Galerie Rudolf Leeb, Vienna

Silver linings

The evocative power of Beáta Hechtová’s paintings instantly transports us to another realm—whether to a distant imaginary world or the depths of our own inner landscapes. Her works emerge as pieces of a vast puzzle, forming a narrative whose hidden meaning is ours to decode—somewhere between an indie video game, a richly symbolic dream – ripe for psychoanalysis – or a science fiction saga.

Within cryptic desertscapes scattered with canyons and caves, populated by hairy cacti, carnivorous plants and other extremophile flora, mutant human figures engage in strange actions. Some wear silvery outfits—are they a tribe, or a sect? Are they members of a successful or failed space expedition? Are we witnessing a post-apocalyptic Earth, or have we landed on a hostile planet?

Caught mid-metamorphosis, these faceless beings grow elongated claws and seem to become translucent. Is this a stage of their destiny, a natural evolution, or perhaps their death and rebirth? The presence of a translucent, iridescent substance adds to the mystery—is it a living entity, or the physical embodiment of an enigmatic ideology? These humanoids perform obscure rituals, seemingly in pursuit of meaning—as if searching for the origins of life or the future of humanity—a kind of existential survivalism.

In this blurred space between utopia and dystopia, a tension emerges—between unease and attraction, like the feeling we experience when contemplating the future. As with the Surrealists, Hechtová’s expansive landscapes function as stages for our emotional and psychic states. For the artist, our natural environments are sanctuaries—refuges to be preserved. Perhaps we too must mutate and shed our old selves, embracing our alienness in order to learn to live ‘in capitalist ruins’, as anthropologist Anna L. Tsing suggests in The Mushroom at the End of the World.

This is the secret power of these works: in the face of a legitimate, unavoidable pessimism, it remains possible—even vital—to imagine new speculative worlds, ones that move beyond the linear myth of progress, towards deeper adaptation and care for our surroundings.

Colette Angeli