Public Republic

Iliana Ivanova, virtual exhibit, part II

The artist doesn’t create as he lives, he lives as he creates.
Jean Lescure

My first acquaintance with Iliana Ivanova’s paintings reminded me that the boundary between an artist’s real life and her artwork can be ever so tenuous, especially when the movements of the soul, its quests and aspirations overflow into the images.

The reception and the experiencing of art is a very personal act. That’s why each encounter with art leaves not just a memory for the senses, but it goes through our very self. My touch with Iliana’s art is related to the feeling for something different, real and very personal, to images and spaces that I feel I have lived through and suffered with, to intimate landscapes, drawn by the soul. It’s where the real and the unreal are intertwined to recreate the vastness and the enigma of human universe, the drama of the heart.

Somewhere there, in the bends and twists and the impulses of the soul, lies the truth for each of us who have been touched by Iliana’s art.

After Iliana’s first virtual exhibit and my first interview with her, I would like to present to you the series Five movements, commissioned by psychotherapist Prof. Bernasconi in relation to his “five movements therapy”. Each of the paintings represents a movement: Seduction, Planning, Distrust (or Reality Check), Submission and Aggression.

Five Movements Series

Seduction

Planning

Distrust or Reality Check

Submission

Aggression

Translated from Bulgarian by Ellie Ivanova Ponti