Plovdiv artist Angel Geshev is showing his exhibition "Awakening" at the Nesi gallery in Burgas. The graphics, paintings and collages bear the marks of more than 20 years of life in Beijing.
Geshev himself counts 22. His Chinese journey began in the late 1990s, and in 1998 he became creative director of the A&Y studio in Beijing.
"I always wanted to escape the influence of Chinese art, but here I am, coming back to it now," the artist told Bulgarian National Radio.
The show takes its name from one of the paintings in it. Geshev says "awakening" is the feedback from his years in Beijing and is one of the main themes. Many of the paintings are called "From East to West" and back, while others are called "From East to East". The artist explained the titles this way: "Living in the East, in Beijing, and coming home to Bulgaria, I find myself in the East again."
The works contain ancient symbols, rock drawings, Glagolitic script and Chinese characters. Geshev said the Glagolitic alphabet first caught his eye as something Bulgarian and native to him, and he later found similarities between it and Chinese characters.
The paintings look like archaeological finds from imaginary civilisations, with surfaces that show the marks of time. Colours, signs and textures overlap to build a story in several layers.
Chinese culture, with its ancient scripts, characters, symbols and philosophy, is a main part of the artist's language. But his start was in Plovdiv and Moscow.
In 1981 Geshev graduated from the Secondary Special Art School for Stage Personnel in Plovdiv. He then studied at the V. I. Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, where he earned a master's degree in graphic art in 1993.
He also worked at the Moscow studio of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, where he developed his skills in graphic imagery, line and print.