The story behind the “Delicate and Passionate” exhibition
Every exhibition has a story, just like every painting in it.
The story of “Delicate and Passionate” began in December 2014 when the British gallery owner Andrew Hillier contacted me with an invitation to work together in his new gallery, where I was going to exhibit next to artists like Vladimir Volegov, Andre Kohn, Atroshenko. During our discussions, the vision of the desired collection of paintings gradually started to take shape – oil canvases with more delicate stories and ones of the more passionate flamenco series.
Alas, the joint project with the gallery did not come to fruition due to Andrew’s deteriorating health, but the idea of the collection of paintings developed into the idea for an exhibition. The creation of conceptual drawings for the exhibition started at the beginning of 2015 and the work on the canvases – in July 2016. The process was slow due to many factors – personal trials, which several times took me away from the intense work for months, the nature of the media, the size of the canvases, the stories, the search for suitable music and poems for each painting, delivering commissions in the meantime, the need for physical and mental rest…
When a project stretches over time, at times you somehow loose faith that it will happen at all. it starts to seem imaginary, you don’t see its end… Then it was the clients who gave me the precious support, who not only encouraged me, but also wanted to own the paintings after seeing them unfinished in my studio. When I think about it, this is one of the most precious recognitions of the value of my artworks. I am infinitely grateful to them!
“Delicate and Passionate” was the exhibition that took the longest preparation and though the process was painfully slow at times, it gave me a lot of pleasure. The challenge I put before me was that the exhibition was entirely “oil” (I hope those of you who know me mainly as pastelist would be pleasantly surprised). And as for the stories and the title, it is enough to add “I am” before it… And it would explain everything…
As an accompaniment to the exhibition since the middle of the last year, we also shot video footage which gradually build up in a colorful story of my work with oils. When I say “shot” I mean full-day photo sessions that turned the art studio upside-down and to make it “nastier” Nia and I were towing tripods and lighting to the framing studio and the park, and other places too. The montage is a completely different category of entertainment which takes hours and hours of music selection, text recording (after you have created it) and hard work in front of the screen until the desired result is achieved.
What more can I share “from the kitchen”? The preparation of the catalogue. In order to create one you need to collect quality material of paintings. and in my case – to take a long time to prepare the right texts for it, because I want the people who open its pages to feel what moved me while I was painting, to “enter” for a moment in the head of an artist and to feel the emotion that moves her. The funding campaign via crowdfunding is one more challenge and I am driven by the idea that regardless of the outcome I will learn something new.
… The euphoria of creation is always enormous. At the end everything blends in: tension, enthusiasm, stress, gratitude, satisfaction, fatigue… but as I share in one of the texts in the catalogue: I believe I have found my calling and then everything on the path is worth it.
Save your evening on December 1st, at 7:30pm, for the exhibition opening in The Art Foundation gallery, 19 Diakon Ignatii Str, Sofia.
You can find more details on the website or in the FB event. And finally: I dedicate this exhibition to my father who passed away last autumn, while I was working on the paintings for the exhibition. I hope he is looking at me from somewhere and is very proud of me.
