Marin Marinov’s exhibition Absurdity at the Beach on at Sofia’s Hostgallery
A solo exhibition entitled Absurdity at the Beach, by Marin Marinov, a visual artist and a doctoral student in mural painting at Bulgaria’s National Academy of Art, is on at the Hostgallery in Sofia until September 24.
The exhibition presents eight large-scale oil paintings exploring the familiar image of the sea, summer and the human body through a contemporary painterly language.
Marinov explains: “In the painting series Absurdity at the Beach, I offer a contemporary interpretation of the classical, traditionally romanticized motif of the sea”.
For centuries, the seascape has appeared in the works of painters, writers, and musicians, accumulating numerous symbolic and emotional meanings, he says.
“In my view, its continuous reproduction has led to the banalization of the subject and its transformation into an easily recognizable and decorative image.”
The depiction of moments of the day such as sunset and sunrise, natural phenomena such as storms, or the relaxed body on the beach fits within an established notion of beauty and confirms certain visual expectations without raising new questions.
“I construct the series as a counterpoint to this idealized and spiritualized perception. Rather than presenting the beach as a space for poetic contemplation, I depict it as a place of play, freedom, entertainment, and experience.
“In my paintings, the idea of sublime inspiration drawn from the sea gives way to the possibilities of movement and interaction. In the works Beach Tennis, Playing with an Inflatable Toy, Hide and Seek, and Three Floating Heads, tennis, inflatable toys, and games of hide-and-seek displace the seriousness and drama traditionally associated with imagery of the sea,” Marinov says.
The absurdity in the series arises from disrupting the expected logic of the motif and from the collision between the culturally charged image of the sea and immediate human behaviour, he says
“I also use images associated with Classical Antiquity, but they appear blurred and unstable, as part of an encounter between the ancient and the contemporary, as in the paintings Ancient Stories, Sculptural Bust with Ball, and Olymp.
“The expressive manner in which I approach the images is also consciously opposed to the idea of harmonious and lyrical beauty. I use the rawness of the painterly gesture, the directness of form, and deliberate roughness as primary means of expression. Through them, I seek to free the image from the necessity of conforming to classical principles of beauty and finish.”
He works with saturated colours applied directly from the tube. Bright pink, purple, yellow, red, and blue create the characteristic, deliberately dissonant environment.
“I do not attempt to reproduce the dark psychological intensity associated with Neo-Expressionism of the 1980s. Instead, I use this painterly language to express the vitality, pleasure, and self-sufficiency of contemporary leisure culture. The series creates a space in which the everyday and the absurd coexist.”
The gallery is at 102 Akad. Ivan Evstratiev Geshov Boulevard, Sofia. The entrance to the gallery is in the inner courtyard of the building.
