Inconsistent Spaces

Lyubomir Krastev has worked on this series of large-format drawings for almost four years. The length of the process is determined not only by the complexity and specificity of the technique but also by the search for an image that captures the essence of our problematic world with a minimum of expressive means.

Although inspired by specific landscapes, places, and situations, in the process of research and recreation on the paper, Krastev creates utopias whose connection to reality is almost lost. The clash between industries and urbanization on the one hand and the resistance of nature on the other, creates desert spaces in which only traces are left. Geographical, political, and cultural differences are unified and transformed into images with an abstract sound. Images-metaphors, images-predictions of possible future cataclysms, disturbing, depopulated landscapes, only hinting at past dynamics.

Krastev’s process usually begins with a photograph taken by the artist or found, reversed in black and white. He starts a kind of game by transforming individual areas from positive to negative, shifting them, and enlarging them. This enables him to move away from the concrete and enter the abstract fields of emotions. He transfers the intended image onto the paper with a highly complex, slow, and demanding immense concentration technique that uses charcoal and graphite powder. The included collage highlights the fluidity and instability of experience, often remaining on the spectrum of the superficial and transitory. In the project, individual realities, objects, and spaces from the natural, architectural, or urban environment bleed into one another, mutually altering each other. Lyubomir Krastev’s work relies on oppositions such as visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, metaphysical-real.

“The desire to be close to nature is increasingly palpable. But only in the form of escape…”, says the author. The exhibition is dedicated to the impossibility of finding harmony between what we have created and the surrounding nature. Somewhere, the connection has broken, and restoring it seems almost impossible.

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Lyubomir Krastev (born in 1983 in Rousse, Bulgaria, lives and works in Plovdiv, Bulgaria). At 2008 he graduated with a master’s degree in Graphic Arts at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts, Plovdiv. Currently, Dr. Krastev is a senior assistant professor at the Fine Arts Department of the same academy. Some of his solo exhibitions include: 2016 ”The Industrial Temple,” Night of Museums and Galleries, Plovdiv and 2013 “Forcing the Election,” National Autumn Exhibitions Plovdiv. Among his group participation can be mentioned: 2019 Rising Ruins (Serge Ecker & friends from Bulgaria) at Veiner Konstgalerie, Vianden Luxembourg; 2019 BACKGROUND: Young Artists from Plovdiv, curated by gallery Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv; 2019 “Generation between destruction and enthusiasm”, a curatorial project by Albena Mihaylova-Benji, presented by AM Contemporary as special guest of LISTE, Art Fair Basel; 2017 “Tractatus Locus” – “The space in contemporary artwork”, curatorial project by Kristina Schrei at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute – Wittgenstein House, Vienna; 2012- New Acquisitions 2010 – 2011, Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia; The Fifth Beijing International Art Biennale; Fusion-International Contemporary Intaglio Print Invitation Exhibition, China.

In 2016 Krastev is a Beneficiary of the Support Program of the Gaudenz B. Ruf Award. In 2010 and 2015 he is a visiting artist in the resident program of International Artist Village, Guanlan, China; 2012 he receives a prize for the National Allianz Competition, Plovdiv; 2009 was awarded at the National Competition for Young Artists, Critics, and Curators, Sofia.

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The project is realized with the financial support of the National Culture Fund.

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