Summary
- Nitra Gallery presents Tassos Vrettos’ new solo exhibition, ?Trees Dance!.
- The exhibition opens on September 24, 2026 and runs through November 10.
- The series includes photographs created during the artist’s travels across Greece over several years.
- The images are produced through an analog process, without digital post-processing.
- Light, shutter speed and the photographer’s own movement are central elements of the photographic process.
- The exhibition is presented at Nitra Gallery in Mets, Athens.
Event Details
Tassos Vrettos returns with the new solo exhibition ?Trees Dance!, a photographic series in which light, bodily movement and shutter speed transform the experience of trees into images.
Nitra Gallery presents Tassos Vrettos’ new solo exhibition ?Trees Dance! in Athens, opening on September 24, 2026 and running through November 10.
The exhibition brings together photographic material created over several years during the photographer’s travels through different parts of Greece. Vrettos continues his long-standing engagement with nature, but this time shifts his attention from the forest as a whole toward the direct experience of trees themselves.
The significance of the new series also lies in the way the images are made: according to Nitra Gallery, the photographs are produced through an analog process, with no digital processing or subsequent intervention. The final result is determined at the moment of exposure through the relationship between available light, shutter speed and the photographer’s own movement.
When the tree stops being a static subject
In ?Trees Dance!, the tree is not treated simply as an object positioned in front of the camera. Vrettos actively introduces his body and physical movement into the photographic process, allowing the image to emerge from the encounter between photographer, light, time and the natural landscape.
This approach connects photography with physicality and performance. Movement is not merely something recorded within the frame; it becomes part of the mechanism through which the photograph itself is produced.
The result moves away from the conventional, perfectly sharp representation of the landscape. Blur, displacement and the lines generated by movement do not operate as technical errors but as essential parts of the photographic language of the series.
An analog process without digital intervention
Particularly significant is the fact that this visual transformation is achieved without digital post-processing.
The image is formed during exposure through variations in shutter speed and in the speed at which the photographer moves relative to the trees. Light, exposure duration, human movement and chance operate simultaneously.
At a time when digital processing and computational techniques can radically transform an image after capture, ?Trees Dance! redirects attention to what can happen at the very moment light is recorded by the camera.
From The Forest’s Riddle to the experience of the tree
The new work continues Tassos Vrettos’ broader investigation of nature.
In 2022 and 2023, he presented The Forest’s Riddle at the Municipality of Chalandri’s “Nobel Building” Cultural Space, an extensive multimedia project examining the concept, reality, collective dimension and representation of the forest.
In ?Trees Dance!, the scale becomes more personal. Rather than primarily examining the forest as a system, the photographer focuses on the experience of coexistence and movement alongside individual trees.
The title itself suggests a “dance” that does not need to be understood literally. It emerges through relationships between bodies, light, time, disorder and ambiguity, turning the tree from a fixed photographic subject into something open and constantly changing.
The career of Tassos Vrettos
Tassos Vrettos has worked with photography since 1979. Alongside his personal artistic projects, he served as head of the photography department at the publishing company Grammi and later at Lambrakis Press Group, while he is also the founder of Studio Vrettos. He was additionally a collaborator of Manos Hadjidakis at the magazine To Tetarto.
His personal work has examined subjects ranging from identity, the human body and the contemporary city to nature and different social and cultural realities.
His solo projects have been presented, among other venues, at the Benaki Museum, the Athens Epidaurus Festival and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, while his work has also appeared at international institutions and events including Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
PTTL has previously covered a presentation of Vrettos’ Wor(th)ship project at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, a body of work exploring places of worship belonging to different religious and ethnic communities in Athens.
When and where ?Trees Dance! takes place
The exhibition opens on Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 19:00 at Nitra Gallery in the Mets district of Athens. It will remain on view until Tuesday, November 10, 2026.
The official exhibition page lists the following visiting hours:
Tuesday and Wednesday: 12:00–17:00
Thursday and Friday: 12:00–19:00
Saturday: 11:00–15:00 and by appointment.
Nitra Gallery is located at the intersection of 20 Aristonikou Street and 10 Gorgiou Street in Mets, Athens.
What we think
?Trees Dance! is particularly interesting from a photographic perspective because movement and blur are not applied afterward but are created within the act of taking the photograph itself. Tassos Vrettos’ decision to rely on light, shutter speed, physical displacement and chance brings photography back into focus as a bodily act rather than simply a means of recording a subject. For those interested in the boundary between landscape photography, abstraction and performative practice, the exhibition offers a clear continuation of the photographer’s earlier work.
Frequently asked questions
When does the ?Trees Dance! exhibition open?
The exhibition opens on Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 19:00 at Nitra Gallery in Athens.
How long will the exhibition run?
The exhibition is scheduled to remain on view through November 10, 2026.
How were the photographs in the series created?
According to Nitra Gallery, the photographs are produced through an analog process without digital post-processing. Their appearance results from the combination of light, shutter speed and the photographer’s movement relative to the trees.
Where is Nitra Gallery in Athens?
The gallery is located in Mets, at the intersection of 20 Aristonikou Street and 10 Gorgiou Street.
How is the new exhibition connected to The Forest’s Riddle?
The new series continues Tassos Vrettos’ research into nature but shifts its focus from the forest as a collective structure to the experience of individual trees and their relationship with the body, movement, light and time.
