The exhibition presents about 20 monochrome canvasses and large format drawings in blue, gray, black and white. Two canvasses in silver only stand out among the rest as a particularly provocative emphasis. Their closest parallel is the even golden background of the icon symbolising the abstract ideas of the world beyond the reach of human knowledge.
Blue is the colour Simeon Stoilov has been studying for quite some time now. The huge blue canvasses have become a constant part of his personal style. This show, however, is something new, or rather, some kind of a return to the philosophy of white canvass. The colour is more ethereal and incorporeal. The flowing of nuances melt form away and leave the painting with just the experience and emotion, with no concreteness of a reason to interpret. This is the pure painting matter left completely to the primary impulse vibrating within the colour.
The crude space in the gallery basement is the most appropriate ambiance for this kind of paintings. The whole concept of the exhibition is subject to the contrasts, the contrasts that are actually a component of complete harmony – like the classical conflict between white and black, light and darkness, Yin and Yang. This is the contrast between the incorporeal colour in the canvasses and the rugged, rough walls.
The basement has also been divided into two contrasting halves. IN the dark half there is just the glow of a winter see. This is the only concrete form in the whole exhibition and an image we can hold on to puzzling out whatever expects us in the other half. There, in the cold, crude light are the canvasses. The only closest thing to this kind of painting in terms of impact is probably the piercing or rumbling sound because they are completely laconic and abstract. This is poetic painting with no narrative or depiction or form.
Svetlana Kuyumdjieva
