On June 12, 2026, at the Liszt Institute in Helsinki, the director of the institute, Nelli Regina Surányi, and the curator of the Dávid Gallery, Béla Balog, opened my exhibition. The guest of the opening was Adrienn Mogyosróssy, who captivated us with her singing.
I am very grateful to the Helsinki Liszt Institute for the opportunity and the professional work!
The exhibition can be viewed until August 5, 2026.
The exhibition was opened by curator Béla Balog:
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Art Lovers!
„The clear mirror of the sight is but the soul,
In which things begin to live and speak.”
Henri de Régnier With these lines I greet you Schmidt Ruth SYMBOL exhibition. This quote is not only one of the gems of symbolist literature, but also the perfect key to the art of Ruth Schmidt as wellHere the canvas is truly that „pure mirror” in which everyday forms shed their physical chains to speak to us in the language of the soul.
When in 1886 Jean Moréas published the symbolist manifesto in the columns of Le Figaro, laid the foundations of a new era. He stated that the true purpose of art is not the slavish copying of nature, but „the rendering of the Idea into a sensual form.” Ruth Schmidt's painting is rooted in this noble tradition. In her world, figures, objects, and lights never exist for their own sake; in the words of Moréas, they are merely „visible representatives” of underlying metaphysical truths. Ruth Schmidt is not content with the surface; she searches for the essence of things, the sacrality hidden behind the visible world.
The exhibition titled SYMBOL Her material is a kind of visual meditation on the condition of 21st-century man. Ruth Schmidt’s images reject didactic explanation. Instead, she uses symbols to evoke not mere recognition in the viewer, but a deep, inner resonance. Like her symbolist predecessors, she knows that art is at its most powerful when it does not analyze but suggest, when it does not provide answers but opens doors.
As an artist and connoisseur, standing among these works, I feel it my duty to emphasize the core value that In every brushstroke of Ruth Schmidt, it pulses: and that is freedom.
I believe that the freedom of art is not merely an aesthetic issue, but the final bulwark of human dignity and autonomy. In an age that loves to confine thinking within frameworks, Ruth Schmidt dares to be free. She dares to go against trends, dares to be spiritual in materialism, and dares to build an individual mythology in the noise of mass culture.
For the freedom of art is the mirror image of human freedom. Only a free spirit is capable of creating symbols and interpreting them; only a free person is capable of standing before the canvas and confronting their own depths.
These images remind us that our freedom begins where we are able to look beyond the visible and create the order of our own inner world.
The painting of Ruth Schmidt is conceived in this noble spirit; for her, the image is never merely a spectacle, but the visible bearer of an underlying, metaphysical truth.
Looking at the beautiful pictures of the exhibition, we realize that We become part of a sort of internal journey by Ruth Schmidtwe can trace how his creative process ascends to the brilliant heights of a mature, accomplished artistic expression.
As a closing, allow me to quote Endre Ady – Neither successor, nor happy ancestor... let me send you among the works with the visionary lines of the second stanza of the iconic poem titled:
„I am, like every man: majesty,
North cape, secret, alienness,
Illusive, distant light,
A ghostly, distant light.”
I wish you that this evening, walking among Ruth Schmidt's symbols, you discover this unique visual and sensitive world!
With these thoughts, I declare the exhibition titled SYMBOL open.