MARKET REFLECTIONS

As an author, I have always been interested in the topic of people around us, the environment in which we live and what it can say about our society. Zhenski Pazar is an extremely colorful and bustling place where different people, with various professions and interests meet. The market environment is perhaps the most accurate reflection of life. Colorful, chaotic, full of all kinds of situations and characters. The struggle for subsistence and its use. Every buyer seems to be in a hurry, like in a dream, to buy the products they need, and the faces of the sellers remain a mystery. I wanted to open this door, to show how each part reflects exactly our life and how everyone can find something of themselves in the chaotic atmosphere of the market.

Monotyping is a technique I have been familiar with since high school. At the Academy of Arts, it became my way to portray moments, compositions and people that left a lasting impression on me during the day. Initially, these were street sweepers, flower sellers and models from the academy. All the characters from our reality, who seem to be just part of the landscape for the rest of us. Perceived as elements of the environment, they gradually lose their spirit in the eyes of passers-by, almost becoming objects, but in fact they can say a lot about us and the reality in which we exist. A reality that we seem to prefer not to understand and not to see.

In my “monotype” works, I have sought to convey a feeling for the drawing rather than the graphic imprint. I like the lightness and muted colors created by the technique. The captured moment, shown through my own prism to the observing viewer. Depicting the market atmosphere as I feel it, with its good and not so good sides, I wanted to convey that purely Bulgarian atmosphere, which can only be felt at one market. In my paintings, I emphasize more on the strong, contrasting colors, transferring the objects into a more surreal setting. In them, the compositions are not spontaneous and touch on more static and serious plots. There is a sense of drama and focus on those moments that are not the most pleasing side of our reality.

I would like the viewer, seeing my paintings, to take away in his soul what he finds positive and close to him, and to think about what can be changed in the world around him. In our hectic lives, we quite often do not realize what is happening and how we contribute to the state of our own reality, be it spiritual or material.

Petra Dimitrova