Exhibition of work by Kalina Taseva to open at Sofia’s Kvadrat 500 gallery

An exhibition of work by Kalina Taseva, one of the illustrious figures in the panorama of Bulgarian visual art, opens at Kvadrat 500 gallery on April 5 at 6pm and continues until June 2024.

Taseva embarked on her artistic career in the 1950s in an extremely difficult sociocultural environment—a time highly charged with ideological dogma regarding Bulgarian art, the gallery said in a media statement.

Her works were not affected by contemporary artistic trends; instead, they were multilayered, revealing a breadth and complexity of thought, and executed with extreme professionalism, the gallery said.

Through her powerful expression, and in a challenge to the time in which she lived, Taseva bolstered her prestige, thereby establishing her vivid presence in the annals of Bulgarian painting.

Leading up to the 1980s, her large-format, multifigural compositions on favourite historical and Revivalist thematics were central to her oeuvre.

She produced images of Macedonian rebels, revolutionaries and haidouks, of women wearing coarse peasant clothes, with a combination of plastic strength and emotionality—the faces are dramatic, austere, and preoccupied. The forms of her earlier works are more decorative, and the line is clear and definite; while, in later works, it is more expressive and dynamic.

A considerable proportion of the painter’s oeuvre was devoted to portraiture. Close friends, artists and intellectuals often served as her models, their complex inner worlds recreated through static poses and contemplative states, with the atmosphere and subdued lighting contributing to the psychological impact she wished to achieve.

Taseva applied her entire painterly power to landscapes and still lifes, which perhaps most fully revealed her artistic talent. She expressed nature’s lyrical moods in a series of canvases dating from the 1990s. By combining her original sensibility, personal style and pronounced emotional strength, the artist sought for a poetic impression of chromaticism.

It is the first time that Taseva is being represented at the National Gallery. The exhibition includes artworks from the collections of the National Gallery; Sofia City Art Gallery; the galleries in Blagoevgrad, Veliko Tarnovo, Varna, Gabrovo, Dobrich, Kazanlak, Pazardzhik, Ruse, Sliven, and Yambol; from the heirs of Kalina Taseva, and private collections.