SEPIA

SEPIA

Sarieva/Gallery is pleased to present Dimitar Genchev’s solo show Sepia. It will take place between April 4 and May 12 at Sarieva/Gallery in DOT Sofia. 

Dimitar Genchev is an artist-alchemist - one of those who seek in art the infinite possibilities for transformation of matter and the mysteries of its origin. A transformation that leaves the mark of a specific dynamism on each of the artworks presented in the artist’s newest solo exhibition - Sepia. Realized in collaboration with Sarieva/Gallery, it is focused on a yet little-known direction of the author’s visual investigations and experiments. 
In his artworks created during the last year Dimitar Genchev combines abstract and figurative elements, exploring how far the decay and merging of forms can go across infinite spaces – weightless, devouring and ephemeral. Spaces that promise nothing, narrate nothing, thus carrying within themselves an immeasurable and much-desired tranquility in a world riddled by the dissonance of noisy narratives. Spaces in which the eye does not seek reconstruction of meaning, history, boundaries, but an ever-deepening immersion.  

The leaf, a natural element with an extraordinary variety of forms, is the principal figurative allurement for the eye in this new series of artworks. But the author is not satisfied with its existence as such, nor does he seek to burden it with a certain symbolism. What interests him is the leaf’s ability to transform, especially on a visual level.  The more we observe the leaves in these artworks, the more they escape us, forever changing into something else. This escape is particularly noticeable in Fragile (2023). A leaf or maybe a cloud, a piece of fabric or paper, the elements in the colorful chaos of the canvas coexist in a permanent visual-poetic mutation which brings about a sense of transience as in a moment of random play of light after a summer storm.  

Light is of fundamental importance in Dimitar Genchev’s work. It is essentially a rhythm, an impulse, a moment of falling in love. In Kingdom (2023), despite the small size of the work, light seems to burst from the canvas and melts everything in its path. The figurative elements appear here as more of a pretext for experimenting not only with the reality of forms, but also with the possibilities of light to generate them. An approach the artist also employs in Pretence (2023), but as though in a reverse movement, letting the elements lose their solidity and gradually dissolve into the background. 

Genchev not only paints light – he creates it in the canvas, skillfully embedding opaque, glossy or translucent elements into a dialogue with the light sources. This play of external and internal light, so characteristic of the author, completes the sense of incessant motion and of the existence of a third dimension on the two-dimensional surface of the canvas.  
In Sepia (2024), light emerges from the deep dark. Literally and metaphorically. No different from an icon painter (alchemist), Dimitar Genchev starts working upon a dark base, seeking among the folds of matter the moment of its transformation. For the artist this moment is first born and felt in the stomach and then on the canvas. The cuttlefish, a mollusk inhabiting the sandy bottoms of seas and oceans, ejects from its stomach jets of ink paint, thus composing its most efficient defense in a series of dense, dark shapes. For centuries of undiminished popularity, the brownish hues of sepia ink paint have portrayed the melancholy of human existence. And although not consciously sought after by Dimitar Genchev, we cannot but sense it lurking in the light.  

The exhibition text is by Desislava Mileva

Press

"SEPIA by the artist Dimitar Genchev at DOT Sofia", Impressio.dir.bg, 29.03.2024

"Dimitar Genchev presents his new exhibition Sepia", Bulgarian News Agency, 29.03.2024

"Solo exhibition by Dimitar Genchev", Kratko Info, 01.04.2024

"SEPIA by artist Dimitar Genchev is the next exhibition of Sarieva/Gallery in the space of DOT Sofia", Kulturni Novini, 02.04.2024

"What to do in Sofia in April", Boyscout, 03.04.2024

"Dimitar Genchev shows "the light along the folds of matter" in a new exhibition", Dnevnik.bg, 5.04.2024

"Unseen paintings by the artist Dimitar Genchev in the exhibition "Sepia" - an interview with Dimitar Genchev, Bulgarian National Radio - Sofia, 10.04.2024 

"The rusty building in the women's market: How the DOT Sofia hotspot came to be" - an interview with Vesselina Sarieva, bTV, 16.04.2024 

The exhibition "Sepia" by the artist Dimitar Genchev - an interview with Dimitar Genchev and Vesselina Sarieva, Kultura.bg, Bulgarian National Television, 25.04.2024

SEPIA, Programata.bg