Maria Nalbantova (b.1990, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a visual artist who works in the field of contemporary art, experimenting with various media and techniques such as drawing, collage, objects, installation, video and photography.

In her artistic practice, she is exploring the topic of hygiene that spans beyond the body and inhabits the territories of the human mind. In addition, she seeks to construct a speculative reality where nature and the artificial intertwine, foregrounding critical social, political and environmental issues. Very often she works with found objects and all the traces of time they carry.

Maria Nalbantova was an artist in residence at Residency Unlimited in New York in March-April 2022 as a winner of the BAZA Award for contemporary art (Bulgaria) in 2020. In 2021 she was granted a scholarship at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. At the beginning of 2020 she was selected by the Sariev Gallery in Plovdiv after an open call, to transform the gallery space into her studio for a month, resulting in her solo exhibition “hybrid-pure”. She won the special young visual artist award of Stoyan Kambarev Foundation in 2020. Her works are part of the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery and private collections.

Her solo shows include: “Bookmarks (New York)” (2022), pop-up exhibition, Residency Unlimited, New York; “Post-tools” (2021-2022), curated by Viktoria Draganova, foryouandyourcustomers, Sofia, BG; “A Good Deal” (2021), UniCredit Studio, Sofia, BG; “Drought” (2021), Intro Gallery, Sofia, BG; “hybrid-pure” (2020), Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv, BG; “Weather Forecast” (2018), curated by Daniela Radeva, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia, BG

Selected recent group exhibitions include: “Sedimentation” (2021), curated by Veronika Čechová, AVU Gallery, Prague, CZ; “US and THEM” (2021), curated by Nathalie Hoyos and Rainald Schumacher, Kapanа Gallery, Plovdiv, BG; “In Defence of Solid Material” (2021), curated by Vesselina Sarieva, Sarieva, Plovdiv, BG; “The Possible Institution” (2021), curated by Viktoria Draganova, Swimming Pool, Sofia, BG; “The herbarium as a place for storing ideas” (2021), curated by Irina Batkova, Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery, Sofia, BG; “InSitu-Institute” (2020), Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia; “ReForget Your Past” (2019), curated by Nikola Mihov, Contemporary space, Varna; “Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap” (2019), curated by Chiara Cartuccia, Goethe-Institut Bulgaria; “The Goods of Time” (2019), curated by Anastasya Skvortsova, Goethe-Institut Bulgaria; “Interconnection: On Bodies of Water” (2019), curated by Veronika Čechová and Tereza Jindrová, Swimming Pool Gallery, Sofia.