PULSATIONS

16 April - 3 May 2024

For the first time Stubel Gallery presents Phenix Varbanov. The Paris-based artist defines himself as a cosmopolitan and acknowledges that it is a God’s gift to be a mediator between three cultures.

The art critic Krassimir Iliev, also a curator of  PULSATIONS writes:

After the exhibition with a retrospective character Tracks Along the Way at Rayko Alexiev Gallery in 2016, we meet Phenix Varbanov more often at the Bulgarian artistic scene.

The child of the first mixed marriage between Bulgarian and Chinese, carrying the blood of the artists  Marin Varbanov and Sun Huai Kuei,  smiled and cried for the first time in Sofia, educated at в Lycèe Pilote de Sèvres и Ecole Nationale Supèriore des Beaux-Arts, Paris, but charmed by the Chinese drawing techniques, for almost 40 years he is a captive of the ink and the paper.

Crumpled and gently stretched the paper absorbs the ink with afaint whisper. The touch between black and white,passing through   the infinite shades between them. A hug in the extasy of the spill, or a clash on the edge of the fold takes turn in a dizzy dance. Whirling the gaze and sucks in the viewer, depraving him from the pilar of logic and reason, sending him into the universe of feeling.

Latelycolors dominate in his works, seeking retribution for years of neglect. Especially vengeful, red feats, pushing out the white, heating the ink to frightening apocalypticity. ?? The paper is cut, shredded and spliced.

At Stubel Gallery for the first tome Phenix Varbanov presents also small works, executed in a new technique – pouring.( spilling?). They are a result of the delicate curves, tender sound of the Chinese lute (пипа, 琵琶), very different and balancing, the pulse quickening waterfalls of passion of the Jing (筝)  instrument, which are feverishly pulsating from the large format colorful drawings.