Pulvis Art Gallery

Nikolay Abrashev

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise to the heart, and gather to the eyes…”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Nikolay Abrashev drew inspiration from Fauvism,
Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism to create his unique artistic language. For the
here presented portrait of a mother breastfeeding her child is an exemplary
piece of Abrashev’s talent to reimagine the complex techniques used by some of
the essential modernist movements that shaped the spiraling uncertainties of an
epoch caught between two world wars.

Thus, as the eye deciphers this work, composed from various
geometric shapes of pulsating color and sharp borders scarring the canvas’ surface,
it is confronted by a process of a radical deconstruction of the image. Or to
put it in other words, the viewer is confronted by the emotive content of Abrashev’s
work, which can be described as a feeling of an almost unbearable tectonic
friction, of a constant dissonance of form and its representative
possibilities.

Furthermore, the work
doesn’t give the eye a sense of place, a sense of where the mother and child
are. It is precisely for this reason that the tension and dissonance succeed in
formulating the work’s radical epochal statement. It is a message to a world that
has become unable to confine reality in clear rational categories, i.e., spaces.
A historical moment devoid of humanity, of these gentle motherly caresses that can
piously collect the broken pieces of Being and nourish it back to harmony.

Alexander Balkanski

“The touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the familiar, making it break out into ineffable music… The trees, the stars, and the blue hills ache with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.”

Rabindranath Tagore

This candid painting evinces a mystifying simplicity that seduces and centers the viewer’s gaze using only the most minimalist, unadorned and essential visual figures – the circle and the line. Alexander Balkanski has left ample breathing room where his beguiling pattern of concisely drawn forms can fully and firmly stand out without getting lost in some grander abstract landscape. The striking succinctness of the work is amplified by the crude and oppressively white drawing paper whose jagged edges mark out the boundaries of an unsteady and purposefully precarious frame. This torn, barren and milky milieu allows the various formal inflections of black and blue to really pop out and arrest the eye. And when it comes to the structure and composition of these miscellaneous monochrome patterns the painting makes it abundantly clear that Balkanski has a great deal of knowledge about the dynamic, inner workings of form and the ways they can be shrewdly expressed and illustrated. For example we could observe how he’s utilized the black paint to develop a brief, but cogent and precise study of width and thickness and how modulating them affects the force, impact and sheer presence of the lines and dots strewn across the canvass. At the same time Balkanski has chosen to complicate this contemplative examination of different formal modes and brush strokes by centering the whole artistic ordeal around the eye-catching cyan circle in the middle. This inspired aesthetic decision gives the whole work an almost mystical, self-transcending quality which reminds us that abstract art, no matter how formalistic, is always firstly concerned with the ineffable. man’s passionate and plaintive prayer. We may be unable to pierce through the veil of the figure’s forlorn face and infer what her unspoken plea pertains to exactly, but the way her slouching body and concave shoulders are contorted lets us feel the burden she’s wearily carrying on her back. In this way the sculpture expresses a sense of complete surrender and self-abandon in the face of a challenge that is insurmountable without the grace and compassion of something transcendent.

Bencho Obreshkov

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the
desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.

Madame de Stael

Reminiscent of Kees Van Dongen’s “Woman with a large hat”, Bencho Obreshkov’s painting is a darkly intimate portrait that creates a sensual, tacitly seductive atmosphere which immediately draws in the viewer. The almost fauvistic use of strong, contrasting colors is alluringly undercut by the thick blacks that contour the expressionistic, dusky backround. The viewer’s gaze is engulfed in a cloak of sultry shadows which bewitchingly emphasize the deep, suggestive reds of the enigmatic woman’s lips and sweater. The aquamarine hat is the only thing in the composition that cuts through the syrupy, dark hues which would otherwise overwhelm the painting and give it an all too explicit, and even decadent, flavour.

By centering the layout of the artwork around this cooler and crisper blue tone a certain sense of amorous ambiguity and playful aloofness are allowed to flourish, making the artwork as a whole more complex and equivocal. The balance Obreshkov has struck between the representation of submarine passions and outwardly coldness is underscored by the fact that the woman is looking sideways in a playful, but also distant manner. This captivating interplay of thick shadows, harshly contrasting colors and minor facial expressions is what makes the “Portrait of Adele” an intricate and sophisticated attempt at portraying how a desirable object’s icy withdrawness can paradoxically enhance its allure.

Kiril Yakimov

"A creator is someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates possibilities."

G. Deleuze

There is a basic question that drives most of Yakimov’s works and gives them their specific allure which one expiriences when confronted by such abstract paintings.
It is a question of the constant sometimes strange interplay between background and foreground that grounds Yakimov’s creative desire. And the case with the here presented “Contemplate” is no different. Even the title of the work suggests it. The viewer is challengeed to contemplate but there are no objects to be contemplated about. On the surface there are only scattered beginnings. Strokes leading nowhere, a line abruptly finished as if only to mark a possible border, a weary white stain, droplets of red and black paint creating a nervous pattern precisely of the absence that has captured the work.

But this is only on the surface.
As the title’s invigorating command provokes the mind to keep searching through the painting, one starts to see the background on which the scattered brushes, dots and stains are carefully positioned. It is actually a photo of a wall that holds the dispersed attempts of Yakimov’s hand. A strange blow-up that reveals the inconsistencies, the fractures of a surface. However, it is the precision of the mechanical eye that caught the imperfections of the wall and transformed them into a surface for painting that unlocks the meaning of “Contemplate”. Thus, Yakimov’s work reveals itself as an experimentation with the possibilities of art to create strangely beautiful doubles – a photo of surface, serving as a surface for a possible artwork.
“Contemplate” is a challenge addressing the viewers’ attention towards the optical illusions and the play of the backgrounds and environments in which people are inscribed. It is a work that reminds us to constantly search for differences, nuances, and beautiful inconsistencies.

Vladimir Dimitrov – Maystora

"Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable."
E. Levinas

One is immediately mesmerized by the overall expressive generosity of one of Bulgaria’s most celebrated painters. Although Maystora is primarily known for portraits that bring him closer to Fauvism rather than Expressionism, “Poppies” is certainly expressionistic for it is a vivid almost pulsating with color work of art.
Here Maystora’s exquisite technique manages to capture the essence of one of the most symbol laden flowers. For it is an essence that comes from existential darkness because poppies were the only flowers that grew on the abandoned fields of war. Within their symbolic core there rest lives sacrificed, lives taken, lives that still stain history. And Maystora (1882-1960) was an artist who survived three wars and was on the front in two of them – the Balkan Wars and WWI.

Thus, “Poppies” can be viewed as a work with a strong biographical element. However, if one stays with such an interpretation, one will miss the fundamental paradox inscribed within the vivid depiction of those war flowers. For “Poppies” is not a dark work. In it there is a lightness, a dreamlike quality that runs through the painting especially in the plain white background that shows the poppies as floating, as if they are balloons crossing clear skies. But it is not a cruel lightness, a lightness celebrating the tragic symbolism of poppies and the scars of a troubled artist.
The actual strength of Maystora’s painting, what overwhelms the viewer is the unbounded joy radiating from these weightless flowers. It is a joy found only in the forgiveness of something as unforgivable as war. “Poppies” is a work of grace.

Georgi Baev

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."
John 1:5

A drawing of the sea at nighttime inevitably conveys a sense of immeasurable depth, longing and loss. A day has gone by, and the bright reflective surface of the water has become a monochrome void drawing into its submarine embrace the empty, cloudless sky. The golden sands of the beach have absorbed the thick murk which has come down from the heavens and covered the blue expanse. And although the uncannily dark seascape is submerged in blue and unsettled by black abstract shapes, the painting is almost startlingly tranquil and even full of hope. The two golden blotches which conceptually complete the painting’s minimalistic composition create the feeling that even during the most empty, dreary, and melancholic of nights, there’s always the promise of a new day coming engulfed in the sublime brilliance of the rising sun. In expressing this existentially potent insight, Georgi Baev’s artwork opens a way of perceiving darkness as the ultimate horizon of light, as that which will be overcome by the radiance of a life that is yet to come. Viewed in this way the foreboding midnight coastline becomes a space of peaceful reflection and patience. There, sooner or later, a bright light will finally come ashore and bathe everything in gold.