80 YEARS SINCE THE BIRTH OF STOYAN TSANEV, 18.02.-06.03.2026

80 YEARS SINCE THE BIRTH OF STOYAN TSANEV

graphics

February 18–March 6, 2026

Stoyan Tsanev (1946–2019) is a Bulgarian artist who reached the ultimate limit of laconicism while preserving a vivid sense of life, delicate elegance, and profound enlightenment. The exhibition at Arte Gallery, organized in honor of the 80th anniversary of his birth, gives us the opportunity to touch the tip of the iceberg of his wandering creativity, which traveled between the United States and Norway, Egypt and Japan. An early drawing of a pegasus reveals him as an artist who uses the line like a scalpel and sees the object from different angles, with the innocent curiosity of a child born with the talent of a surgeon. We see him grown up in the time of the Marionettes, of disassembled people who look with amazement at their fragile, fragmented construction; inhabiting the years of “developed” socialism, claustrophobic spaces created by a sense of hopelessness. And reaching the bright days of complete freedom, of pure gesture, of feelings unburdened by reflection, when the hand measures and dances – two seemingly opposite actions that Stoyan Tsanev combines, and from this union arise the most successful works in painting and painted ceramics from his late career. Attempts to unravel it are doomed to failure, because those who perceive the precision of the measure cannot be intoxicated by the dance, and vice versa. But if they abandon reading and immerse themselves in their feelings, they have a chance to experience the pure, inspiring joy embedded by its creator.

Krasimir Iliev, February 2026