Exhibition opening: Stefan Churchuliev (painting) and Alexander Davidov (sculpture)

Sofia Gallery, 7pm
Exhibition opening and Bulgarian wine reception

Stefan Churchuliev

Stefan Churchuliev
was born in 1968 in the town of Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria. He is a second-generation artist, the son of the well-known Bulgarian artist Petko Churchuliev (1942-1995).
The Municipal “Petko Churchuliev”Art Gallery in the town of Dimitrovgrad has been named after him.
?In 1987, Stefan Churchuliev graduated from the National School of Fine Arts “Ilia Petrov” – a well known and prestigious national cultural institution.
?Later he majored in Art Design at the New Bulgarian University, Sofia.
?He is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists, section “Painting“.
?He has had numerous one-man and collective exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad, among which:
?2007 – Exhibition at Circle + Gallery, Sofia.
2010 – Exhibition at Jules Pascin Gallery
2013 – Exhibition at Vivacom Gallery, Sofia
?In 2011 he was highly praised by the Uppsala University, Sweden.
The Uppsala University, with the support of the Embassy of Sweden in Bulgaria showed his work at the University . That exhibition was an accompanying event at the World Congress “Goths” and the recognition of the only preserved copy of “Codex Argenteus” (the Gothic Bible) as a UNESCO cultural monument.
?He has been nominated twice for the Allianz Bulgaria Grand Prix.
?In 2013 he won a fine arts competition of the Union of Bulgarian Artists for a two-months specialization in Paris, France.
Here are some of revues on his exhibition in 2013:
?”A powerful performance-exhibition that has never been shown.
?Paintings locked inside a space inaccessible to the viewer.
?A viewer, who can only peep through the slit.
?The only intermediary between him and the paintings is the text, the narrative, the story that have taken the place of the painting on the wall.
?Curiosity is the stimulus to squeeze through the barriers and to see the paintings, but only for those, who have the courage to do it and doubt other people’s opinion or want to experience the pleasure of the encounter.”
……….
?Here is what the artist shares:
?”The exhibition appeared as a result of our year-long work on this project which started in 2012 by sending out invitations to several authors working in various directions and playing a determining role in contemporary Bulgarian art (poets, theater or cinema directors, playwrights, artists and journalists).
I had invited them to visit my art studio and I presented my paintings to each of them personally over a glass of wine. After that, I asked them to write down something that would present their impressions of the paintings to the viewer and to become intermediaries between the paintings and the public.
?I received exceptionally varied and interesting texts.
?The texts took the places of the paintings in the exhibition.
?The paintings were hung isolated in a somewhat hardly accessible space in the middle of the gallery hall.
?The viewers had to choose themselves from the available texts for perceiving the paintings or to doubt and find themselves their own, harder, way to them.
?Physically and emotionally.”
?2014 – One-man exhibition at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, London, UK.
In? 2014 his works have been juried for participation at the Autumn Salon in Paris.
Stefan Churchuliev uses interesting painting techniques laying sand varying in types and colours which he collects during his journeys to various places in the world. He aims to build up a space out of sand and to make the viewer forget about the material. He often paints still lifes because objects are symbols of history that carry information about people and are mirrors of of their emotions.
”I started experimenting with sand because sand gave me the richness of colours that nature alone can offer. I began to collect sand from all over the world: from Bulgaria, from the Mediterranean, the islands of the Pacific, from the Sahara and Dubai. My friends brought me sand from wherever they happened to go. While working, I imagined their experiences of the journeys they had been on, but then I had no idea how many other associations, thoughts and dreams that would invoke. I felt the pleasure of the hand from which sand flows out as in hourglass. I had no idea about the uniqueness of that moment and how it slips away from my hand onto the painting; I was not aware of force of time that in analogically ran through my fingers.”
“Painting helped me find a symbol in sand. A symbol of time, a symbol of the strange instances which create the painting.
Time flows out of my hand, and like sand it leaves a trace, a trace I paint with. A trace that remains in the painting. While drawing, I can keep control of time. I can slow it down or accelerate it, but I cannot stop it because if I stop it, the drawing will disappear. Time exists only while I draw.”
“?My paintings are not decoration, but a sequence of moments and emotions, a challenge to the viewers to tune their senses and to extract the energy from them. The energy of the time stored in them. Time that goes on running through my fingers …?… onto the canvas!“

Alexander Davidov
Alexander Davidov was born on February 18th 1987 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

In 2006 he graduated from Fine Arts High School.

In 2008 he started working with plastic arts. In the same year, he began his education at New
Bulgarian University specializing in sculpture.

Davidov had his first solo exhibition in 2011 at Grand Hotel Sofia.

The young artist already has a prominent circle of fans, both in Bulgaria and abroad.