24 February - 20 March 2022 - Alina Papazova solo exhibition
Оpening: 24 February, 18:00
Alina Papazova's third solo exhibition "Pathways to Bliss" * is a multidisciplinary project that unfolds an author’s visual story presented via an installation consisting of drawings, paintings and three-dimensional objects.
The story is not told in writing, nor is it consistent, which makes the narrative a non-linear dream-like tale. There are existing mythical zoomorphic and anthropomorphic creatures, which Alina has encountered in her own dreams.
In this sense, the exhibition takes the form of a study of the influence of the deep-rooted, ancient, archetypal forms in the psychology of the modern person. Monstrous predators are locked in the subconscious, causing primary horror and disgust, or the opposite - supreme curiosity, beauty and love. From a psychoanalytic point of view, they reveal subconscious conflicts and aspirations that often remain rationally inexplicable. By looking at them and integrating them into her work, Alina gives them the freedom to live a new life, to meet other like-minded beings and intertwine them in a whole new context. Like the medieval literary genre Bestiary, the author extracts the symbolism of these characters with their cultural, vital imagery and returns them to the viewer's perception. Such domestication makes it easier to coexist with the conscious and unconscious mental traumas and deal with an otherwise demonic reality.
* The name is a direct reference to the eponymous book "Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation" by Joseph Campbell, which, like the exhibition, explores the personal and psychological side of myths.
ABOUT ALINA PAPAZOVA:
Alina Papazova (b. 1993) is a visual artist based in Sofia. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Graphics and Illustration and a master's degree in Ceramics and Porcelain at the New Bulgarian University, where from 2020 is a part-time lecturer and doctoral student in the speciality "Ceramics and Porcelain".
Alina creates specific, sometimes ironic, illustrative plots, symbolically burdened mostly with mythological images and scenes from different cultures, but often placed in the context of contemporary problems and patterns of behaviour. She transfers her illustrations to various visual media, but the main focus of her work is the transformation of a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional ceramic object.
The project is implemented with the financial support of the National Culture Fund.
