*** On October 29th (Tuesday) from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm, welcome to SeeMeOn 29 for an exhibition of contemporary works by artists from USA, Germany and Italy! ***
The LOCALITIES exhibition brings together works by artists from different countries who have chosen to work within a month in Bulgaria at the international artist residencies World of Co Artist Residency (Sofia) and IMAGO International Artist Residency (Tsarimir village, near Plovdiv). You will see contemporary dance, installations, collages, sculptures, painting, linocut and cyanotype.
Four artists from the United States, one from Germany and one from Italy – very different in their artistic approach and aesthetic interpretation, but strongly related to their sense of place, of the local, with all its charms and problems… With big curiosity and a sense of constant rediscovery of how rich the local environment, culture, mentality and heritage could be, they analyzed the site in their own specific way. They were remotely joined by the young Bulgarian conceptual artist Radoslav Parvanov who also draws inspiration from the paradoxes of our environment.
*** World of Co Artist Residency: Based in the heart of Sofia, World of Co. is the first year-round international artist residency in Bulgaria. The initiative started in 2017 and until now, along with the Bulgarian participants, there are already more than 80 artists from all over the world. Projects created during the residency program were later exhibited in the USA, Canada, Australia and Switzerland. After their residency stay many of the artists came back and participated in individual exhibitions in different galleries and art spaces in Sofia.
-> Their residents this month are:
Johanna Failer | Multidisciplinary Artist, Germany | www.johannafailer.de
The work of the German artist Johanna Failer is a reminder, “a non-didactic index-finger and a window handle to open up something in us: a readiness that allows us to be permeable to our surroundings”. Working in painting, writing, mixed media, video, drawing, performance and installation, the multidisciplinary artist is a channel for the narratives, rituals, visions and objects that unite us. A central momentum in her work is the collection, invention and the telling of stories through the visual. This is both a work of translation as of formation.
“Failure is indispensable, as my last name announces.”
Mariah-Rose Marie | Visual artist, USA | www.mariah-rose.com
Mariah-Rose Marie M is interested in the intersections of identity. Through paintings, drawings, comics, and poetry, she studies the overlap of influence from biosphere to culture, to individual. Local lore, origin myths and traces of animist thought in modern communities are steady inspiration. Her work gives reverence to the shared emotions and origins of all living beings, seeking to soften borders and binaries through vulnerability, humor, and storytelling.
Federica Zianni | Sculptures, Italy | www.federicazianni.com
Federica Zianni is interested in silence as a contact form, not in the very strict sense of a tactile experience but for its communication lever through participation in her work. The artistic production is based on listening, understanding, not as a physical action focused on relationship but as an inner self-introspective necessity. Federica Zianni believes that „communicating“ is not strictly related to speech but essentially to the listening capacity. Listening allows us to build qualitative relationships.Silence is the common and eternal language of the universe, the most suitable to communicate the deepest feelings and to exorcise the deepest fears.
The artist deals with the theme of identity and mourning. Her mute sculptures are born this way, perfect mechanisms that refer to nothing but themselves, to a closed circuit to the outside from which no sound derives.
In her latest production, the artist also deals with the theme of self-introspection, creating moving and shiny surfaces that do not refer to a clear portrait of those who are mirrored.
*** IMAGO International Artist Residency is an international interdisciplinary residency with a main focus on contemporary art, based in the village of Tsarimir near Plovdiv. This is the first season of the project, realized by Radoslav Mehandzhiyski and Teodora Konstantinova – known in the artistic circles as founders of the independent platform for contemporary art and culture Art and Culture Today / Съвременно Изкуство и Култура (www.ARTandCulture.today).
-> Their residents this month are:
Jillian Goodwin (New York, USA) – Contemporary dance and installation -> jillianlaurengoodwin.com
In her career, Jillian goes through classical ballet to come up with a conceptual contemporary dance that explores the movement of the body as a healing practice – for both the creator and the audience. During her time at IMAGO she was discovering new specific places in the village of Tsarimir every day which dictated new movements that she shot. She transformed her studio into a personal sacral space transformed by her own belongings and found objects from the village. She will also recreate this installation within the exhibition in Sofia, so that she can dance in front of and among the audience. You will also be able to see the videos she shot in the village of Tsarimir.
Eva Z. Schmitt (Berlin, Germany) – painting, linocut, cyanotype -> arteva2013.wordpress.com/
Eva also draws inspiration from her surroundings – views, objects, local mentality. During her stay, she created „portraits“ of situations around the village of Tsarimir. You will be able to see her paintings, linocuts and cyanotypes.
Leslie Campbell (USA) – collages, sculptures -> www.ravenworksstudio.net (Ravenworks Studio)
Leslie arrived with open senses and a curiosity to embrace the local environment and culture, collecting old things, newspapers, found objects on the streets of the village, stories she learned during her stay… All these curious bits of stories became collages and sculptures that liven up the spirit of the place and give it new meaning.
Radoslav Parvanov (Bulgaria) – instalallations/conceptual art
Radoslav is a lawyer by profession and conceptual artist by vocation. He remotely joined the IMAGO Artist Residency from his studio in the Transko area and created an installation that gives an artistic reading of the paradoxes of our modern reality by emphasizing aesthetic shock and food for thought…
arteva Malerei Eva Z. Schmitt 