I believe that creating something meaningful, impactful, and valuable requires time, patience, depth, inspiration, and authenticity.

The first large painting from the ballet series was created in 2018. I titled it “Among the Stars”, inspired by one of the beautiful poems by Radosveta Avramova – Caribiana. That title eventually gave its name to this entire exhibition.

In the following years, I continued developing studies for more ballet-themed paintings, as well as several female nude figures with surrealistic elements. Gradually, the concept for the exhibition began to take shape. For me, it has been a long journey and an exploration of my inner universe—a reflection of the delicate sensitivity with which I perceive the world.

Continue reading About the exhibition “Among the Stars” at Acrista Cafe.

Today I present to you an exceptional Spanish artist whose work I first saw a few years ago in his hometown of Valencia. In fact, one of the main reasons I chose Madrid for our nomadic month was my desire to visit the Museo Sorolla in the Spanish capital. Therefore, on a hot June day, we walk to the wonderful house with a garden and with great pleasure immerse ourselves in its world, in search of inspiration, charging and enrichment.

Who is Joaquin Sorolla

Born in 1863 in Valencia, Joaquin Sorolla lost his parents as a child and together with his sister were raised by his aunt and uncle.

Continue reading Joaquin Sorolla – The Master of Light at Acrista Cafe.

The art world is full of clich?s, but it’s never too late to learn something new. The YouTube channel Great Art Explained is proof of that and is a precious art find.

In general, I am not a huge fan of “explained” series, but this one turned out to be very different. In it, curator and gallerist James Payne focuses on a particular famous painting or artist and makes an in-depth analysis of the work / artist, placing them in the context of the times in which they were created / worked, the family they grew up in, the political and social environment.

Continue reading “Great Art Explained” at Acrista Cafe.

Those of you who follow my work may know, that this March marks 20 years since I created the website acrista.com and the Acrista Art brand was born. The first half of this period I spent mastering the soft pastels as a material and the artist who greatly influenced me during this time and was a sort of virtual mentor for me, was the pastelist Harley Brown.

I came across him after subscribing to International Artist magazine, where Harley had regular articles, sharing wisdom on the artist’s life and priceless practical advices on the creative process.

Continue reading Harley Brown – soft pastel artist at Acrista Cafe.

“The thing we label as talent is not a single ability. It is a complex mixture of motive, curiosity, receptivity, intelligence, sensitivity, good teaching, perseverance, timing, sheer luck, and countless other things.”

“Serious painting is not something that can be learned casually. You must be willing to sacrifice many other things.”

“I regard my disasters as invitations to learn more.”

“Art happens in the mind of the person seeing them.”

“Don’t reject difficult ideas simply because you fail to grasp them immediately. Put them on hold until you do, then decide.

Continue reading Quotes from “Alla Prima”, Richard Schmid at Acrista Cafe.

It’s been a while since I have been impressed so thoroughly by an artist – from the chosen medium (enamel paint), from developing technique by trial and error, combining several working places with a gallery, to market positioning, scope (huge canvases delivered worldwide), personal approach (he hand delivers all of his art in the UK) and experimenting with different mediums in addition to paintings – aluminum sculptures, art with cast resin blocks, enamel paint on carbon fiber…

Ed, who creates under the label Swarez, is absolutely self-thought and although he’s often told that ‘this can be painted by my five year old child too’ and ‘he’s not an artist’ with such abstractions, his story is so inspiring that I read thoroughly every page of his website and watched all available video materials on his Youtube channel.

Continue reading Swarez Art at Acrista Cafe.

I knew that the second season of Genius would be inspiration, contemplation and very much needed context, as if a long time ago you had started putting together a puzzle of somebody’s live, but you missed pieces and reasons.

A few things keep resonating in me after the ten episodes for this extraordinary, whimsical, driven innovator which some would call a prick, a rake, an egoist and they might be right depending on their viewpoint:

• his purposefulness and outright refusal to compromise
• his fierce desire to surpass a colleague by whom he felt awed (Matisse) and thus to surpass himself
• his hectic search for the new, the different, the radical
• using women as source of love energy, mystery, inspiration that incessantly keep him “hungry” for life
• his unconditional rejection of any rules
• placing art before and above all (which is a condition for greatness as long as one is ready to pay the price)

Continue reading “Genius: Picasso” at Acrista Cafe.

Recently I came upon some documentaries by Bloomberg on modern artists that create on a huge scale. I was truly fascinated and inspired!
the series are nearly sixty, every video is approximately 25 minutes long.

P.S. After I watched nearly 2/3 of the documentaries, I thought:
– never comment / judge / reject modern art before you know details on the concept behind it
– dream big! dream beyond your own dreams! and in general – don’t stop dreaming!

Continue reading “Brilliant Ideas” modern art documentaries at Acrista Cafe.

*Images copyright belongs to the rightful owners

It’s been a while since I wrote a post in the Art category, so today I would like to share not one but three artists. They create very diverse art, but all of them impressed me with their exquisiteness and love for the detail.
I would love to own them in my house some day 😉

The floral fairy-tales of Vanessa Hogge:

the tender watercolors of Yuko Nagayama:

The epic sculptures of Kris Kuksi:

Continue reading Exquisite pieces of art at Acrista Cafe.

In my perception art is always divided in two main types: art which has aesthetic merit, is emotionally saturated and open-heartedly enjoyed by a large group of connoisseurs; and the other art which has a pretence for greatness and costs millions, because someone (an expert, to be sure) has whispered to some people with money that this is art and it is worthed to invest. I, personally, don’t have a problem with what one calls art and for how much they manage to sell it (every form of self-expression is art, and apparently it includes cows in formaldehyde, skulls with diamonds, crushed coca-cola cans, ceramic seeds amounting to the population of China, and even excrement in a can).

Continue reading “33 Artists in 3 Acts” at Acrista Cafe.

and here are some artists studios – some of which are brutal…

Continue reading Art documentaries at Acrista Cafe.

I doubt there is a better choice for the role of the growling and eccentric Turner than Timothy Spall (I’m not sure why he was not nominated for this role), who brilliantly plays his blunt and at times unrefined character carrying pencil and sketchbook everywhere to gather ideas.

Continue reading “Mr. Turner” at Acrista Cafe.

photo source

I have been following the articles of brainpickings.org for a while now and a few days ago, while going through the saved-for-later stuff, I found a true treasure: the speech of Teresita Fernandez, a New York based artist, at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts.

Very few things manage to impress me lately – maybe because of the immense amount of information around us, offering too little meaningful content, but the words of Teresita touched me, and inspired me, and are a source of true wisdom, not only for artists, but for any human being.

Continue reading Teresita Fernandez Commencement Speech at Acrista Cafe.

For centuries and for many reasons women artists stayed anonymous, which in time led to the ridiculous assumption that women are not as good artists as men, that is why they are not as famous. More thoughts and interesting facts on the matter – in the documentary on the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington.

Continue reading Museum of Women in the Arts at Acrista Cafe.