A Group Show

Entitled ‘A Group Show’, to mark his first one-man exhibition at our gallery, Nedko Solakov (1957, Cherven Briag, Bulgaria ) makes reference to the fact that at the beginning of his career, in the early 90’s, his work was not so easily identifiable. It was almost as if his works came from the hands of other artists. The exhibition opens with these symbolic words written on the wall: “Sometimes I feel like a container-creature that unifies and separates different personalities (artist A, artist B, artist C…)”. Hereafter, twelve very diverse works are presented, giving the impression that they have indeed been created by different artists: a large canvas (Realities), a series of polaroids (An Easy One), a group of drawings (Magic Stories) and one of oil paintings (Genres & Seasons, Seasons & Genres), two videos (The Deal and Some of My Capabilities), photo with tiny drawings on the top of it (Vitiligo People) and various installations.

Today, Solakov’s ironic, metaphoric and polysemantic style is clearly recognizable, whether the artist uses photography, installation, video, painting or drawing. His work combines playful irony – often directed towards the Western Art World –  and self – irony, emphasized by a sense of the absurd and surprising pictorial and graphic capacity. The artist creates installations of a narrative nature, often using drawing and writing, inventing stories (for instance, the Diverse Stories series of 2006, and 2007’s Relatively Sad Stories), imaginary characters and anthropomorphic figures that populate sheets of paper, hide against walls or camouflage themselves against wallpaper. Technical and conceptual freedom, a fertile imagination and great story-telling capacity are only some of Solakov’s hallmarks, one of the most interesting international level Bulgarian artists.