SILVIA KARAMFILOVA

“THE CITY OF HUMAN STORIES” is part of a cycle of paintings called “The City” on which I began working in 2016. The inspiration for it originated from my own experience of having lived in large cities until recently. Upon moving to the Belgium, Luxembourg and France borderline area, I discovered that the size of a city influences how one perceives the world around him/herself.

Each city is usually established by different people. They instill in it their very spirit, experiences, culture, interests, desires, etc… They fill the city with their separate stories all of which merge to establish a specific quality characteristic of the nature of that city. In choosing where to live, each one of them becomes part of the city scape and thus contributes to the city’s growth, change, improvement and its subsequent decline. Тhe city is a place which facilitates the interaction, exchange, convergence or clash between various elements: thoughts, ideas, commodities, skills, persons, interests, fortunes, desires, sensibilities, ideologies, and even stupidities.

This specific painting is not of an illustration of an existing city, but a collective image combining various architectural elements and styles representative of different cultures and traditions which intertwine and overlap with one another. The result is an almost fairy-tale like skyline whose numerous golden domes shine brightly reflecting the gleaming light streaming upon them. Light can have both a physical impact and a spiritual one leading to a peculiar and unique state of mind.

Notwithstanding the synthetic character of this city which has combined the differing stories of the people inhabiting its different sections, one gets the feeling that life is similar everywhere. The typical for the city shared human fates of families, friends, professional connections or relationships between total strangers, are characteristic of every city. When we put aside all of this, we understand that very often the borders between us slowly hush down and disappear. This suggests to us that we must strive to overcome our differences.

At a certain moment, this painting resembles an engraving. It has a geometrical structure which I often apply in my art. Perhaps it is appropriate to remind what the German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer Johannes Kepler has said: “geometry is the archetype of Beauty in the world”.

In fact, I oppose the old classical cities with their specific atmosphere to the new type of “smart cities” with their technological innovations and constant video surveillancе… In the old charming and not so charming cities (because all of us have a favourite city in the world) we still have the feeling of internal freedom. What will the city of the future bring us?!… Time will show…