BONJOUR PARIS

2 - 20 October 2023

BONJOUR PARIS

Momchil Georgiev

On October 2nd an exhibition by Momchil Georgiev will open at Stubel Gallery.

The artist’s first encounter with Paris happened back in 2006. Sixteen years later, he once again found himself in the city of love, of sin and of lights. This time, Momchil discovered the beauty of the early Paris mornings:

“The same countless lights, caught in the moments before the sun’s chariot ascends to heaven.  Remains of light, as if from a bygone era, travelling to this day…. Caught in the minutes of timelessness, just before the night gives way to the bright daytime sky.

In the minutes before sunrise, I love to watch the cafe owners sweeping the sidewalks, to smell the aroma of freshly baked bread and croissants, to follow the green trucks, washing the streets and leaving shiny traces behind or the lame black Labrador Paco who happily goes for a morning walk. To stroll slowly on the bridges and streets, contemplating the birth of the new day, to observe how the Seine hugs the islands, and the streetlamps quietly turn off. And Brigitte Bardot’s voice floats in from somewhere…. Le soleil, soleil,” shares Momchil.

The exposition includes fourteen paintings created during the last year. Iovo Panchev writes about them: “At first glance, the new works by Momchil Georgiev stand out from the well-known and recognizable style of the artist.The crossed faces – captured states of splitting, impress with their frozen and at the same time flickering anxiety – a distinct lyrical dramatism, filled with a sense for the human. In the “reports” from the Paris visit – a series prepared by the artist during the artist’s stay in the studios of Cite des Art – Georgiev develops the thematic spectrum and at first glance changes the genre. The compositions, showered with reflections and glare, games of light in a dappled darkness, achieve a similar effect of tension,caused by new visual formsof broken integrity. The specific feeling familiar from the split portraits unfolds in a peculiar and even mystical way in the elegant psychological extortion of the eye. To avoid entering the territory of Gestalt and theories subject to the primordial human striving for wholeness, we will leave the words as far as they go, because the artist’s work with human material and theme goes much further.” (Yovo Panchev)