The Source of Inspiration
The Kuwait Times
by Velina Nacheva
KUWAIT: Bulgarian native and London resident Minna Georgieva is a cosmopolitan at heart, who finds inspiration for her art in every feeling, rainstorm, film of mist or rattle of thunder. “My paintings have no ethnicity and do not follow a certain school of landscape,” she says, and readily agrees that while Bulgaria is her home the Middle East ha s definitely found its place in her paintings. However, nature takes lead as a source of perpetual inspiration.
Standing in the middle of her exhibition, she admits that the things she reads, her environment, her multiple travels and the photographs she takes often find their place in her artwork. “The joy I get from painting a face is just as exiting for me as letting the paint drip and mix with the pigments freely. I guess it is all about letting incidents inspire you and control their Structure”, she asserts.
‘Mist’ calls her love for the mountains in her native Bulgaria. “We were walking in the Balkan range of Trajan and suddenly a thick mist fell and covered the view,” she explained. The Camera could not catch the change in the weather and thus she tried to depict the view using a brush and paint. “My work is in the medium of paint on canvas. Throughout the Years my subjects of interest have changed in various directions but the one that always seems to be appearing in all of the work is the constant search for depth and movement”, she shared.
Her upbringing in art, she says started with a classical study of the world surrounding “us in painting, drawing sculpture composition and graphics” and later on continued in much more abstract visions of that same world- which she referred to as “my larger paintings”.
Born in Ethiopia, Minna is only 24 years old but has had 15 solo exhibitions in Kuwait, London and Sofia. Asked about the technique she applies in Painting, she calls her unique stile a version of the “mixed media’ school. “Ambient” is her most recent book-inspired piece. Standing next to the predominantly blue canvas she says, “It is self explanatory”.
She graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design with BA in Fie Art Painting in 2003 and currently lives in London, where she draws and manages an art company dealing with exhibitions, galleries, auctions and design. She received two awards from the British Council for painting and designing greeting cards. Asked about her future projects, her eyes start brimming with excitement and she forecast more creativity. “ We have an idea to make a joint exhibition with Kuwaiti artists in London,” she tells me, receiving a bouquet of flowers from one of the visitors on the opening night of her exhibition in Kuwait on Sunday. Two years after her exhibition titled Ambient Contemporary Paintings was held at the National Gallery of Kuwait she returned to the country at the invitation of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. Angel Mantchev, the Bulgarian ambassador to Kuwait, opened Minna’s third exhibition in Kuwait on Sunday Evening, which will be on display in Ahmad Al Adwany Hall in Abdullah Al-Salem until April 5, 2006.
