It is my first time attempting to show a complete exhibition virtually and convey a message from a distance. I must admit, it feels very different and does not even come close to walking through the threshold of a real gallery where one has the chance to observe art works in real life and use all his/her senses to feel their impact. Since I will not be able to welcome you in the real gallery in which I can walk you through the exhibition and discuss it with you, I have taken the liberty of adding a text to each painting which you can read at your own discretion by clicking on its image.
This new exhibition bears the name “Stories Online” and brings together 19 large paintings and 20 small ones. They all represent interpretations of varying stories related to events, persons or nature that I have come across in the past two years. The one common thread connecting almost all of them is the process of CHANGE. This is the change that each one of us experiences in his/ her lifetime either willingly with an open mind or forcibly being coerced by the circumstances surrounding us. It motivates each of us to reinvent his/ her individual world and from there the world we share with others around us.
“We, humans, do not want to conquer the cosmos at all. We want to expand the boundaries of the Earth endlessly. We don’t want other worlds; we want a mirror. We are in the foolish position of a man striving towards a goal he fears and does not want… …because… we are only seeking Man!”From the movie
Solarisby Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972,
based on Stanislaw Lem’s novel
Solaris
Please click on each painting to learn about its story.
The paintings below depicting flowers and trees are part of a bigger cycle of paintings called “Small paintings” consisting of two parts: “Whispers of the Leaves” and “Other Tiny Paintings”. They are characterized by their size which is, with a few exceptions, always 10×10 cm. The “Whispers of the Leaves” part is in a way a continuation of one of my first cycles “Trees and Flowers in Time”.
Trees, flowers and plants have always been an inseparable part of our life. Beyond their decorative properties, they usually have a symbolic meaning or association that is related to the subject of each painting.
EPILOGUE
In conclusion, I would like to cite the words of Ivo Andrich in support of the ideas
underpinning my paintings and the messages they bring to those of you who will take
some time to observe them:
“Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn’t,
there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space
a lot of us spend our whole lives.”
This is precisely why we should be insightful…
* * *
Thank you for spending time viewing this exhibition and reading the
accompanying notes to it. I hope it has brought you new knowledge, hope
and pleasure.
With my best regards,
Silvia Karamfilova
Artist