At ONE Gallery, Svilen Stefanov presents paintings created over the past two years. They are complemented by a series of twelve drawings, which is also being shown in an exhibition space for the first time. What we see is a distinctly articulated selection that can also be read as a current synthesis of the artist’s themes and visual language. After a period of interest in the field of neo-conceptualism, Svilen Stefanov returned to painting as early as the mid-1990s. He deliberately began to develop his own form of conceptual painting, in which he applies classical painterly means in an intellectual manner. The approach is formally painterly, yet grounded in the understanding that contemporary art is above all a mode of thinking, which can manifest through the specificities of any objectifying means. Stefanov inserts text into the image that is not literary or narrative; rather, it aims at a semantic rupture that presupposes conceptual disorientation. The striking captions relate to cinema, art history, music, literature, even politics; a synthesis between word and image is at play, with alternating dominance, and within this ironic setup it is difficult to find a direct route to an unambiguous reading. Here, a guide toward so-called “common sense” is not provided. In Svilen Stefanov’s canvases, reversed perspective lends the inanimate objects a surreal psychological charge. He builds the painterly surface through layers of thin imprimaturas and glazes. The formats often imply horizontal development, and compositions with two or three objects suggest symmetry. In this way, the artist steps beyond the standard reflex of the academically trained painter to seek the “golden ratio” or whatever might be considered the “correct” composition. He is not afraid of mirror-like symmetry and moves between the beats. For these reasons, there are every grounds to claim that Svilen Stefanov possesses a world of images and a visual language, shaped over time, which operate within the art world as a unique “trademark.” Suzana Nikolova
