Ilia Petrov and “Faces of War” – drawings, graphics 18.-30.11.2024

Arte Gallery and Radevi Collection

present

Ilia Petrov and “Faces of War”

drawings, graphics

18.-30.11.2024

The selection of the current exhibition includes works inspired by and dedicated to the Spanish Civil War, the riots and the social collisions in Bulgaria before and during the Second World War (the September Uprising, the anti-fascist resistance). Iliya Petrov interprets and constructs the content of his works through the prism of the understanding that war events are not only physical clashes and conflicting confrontations of large masses of people but also deeply disturbing experiences, individual, specific human dramas, containing within them numerous personal and familial tragedies. That is why, alongside soldiers, we often find the mothers, the wronged, the victims, the “humiliated and aggrieved.” The imagery used by the author ranges from the natura-like form to the grotesque deformation. Line, stroke, stain, relief patterning and subtle spatial gradations are mastered and subjugated to an academic understanding of composition, of the figurative direction of the subject beginning. These qualities of Ilia Petrov’s work define and condition the great variety of particular solutions with the astonishing unity of the worldview foundation that underlies the personal stylistics of the eminent artist.

prof. Chavdar Popov, November 2024