Galeria Nicodim is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Bulgarian artist Stefania Batoeva.
Batoeva’s practice nimbly hedges formal definition. Straddling the domains of painting and sculpture, her work seeks to examine and transform the way in which contemporary gesture is stratified. The origin of any mark-making within Batoeva’s practice is distinctly defined by the situational aspects of how, when and where a work is conceived; the final product acting in reflection of the space, time and temporal elements surrounding each act of creation. In turn, the work functions more largely as a play upon what the artist may (or may not) actually control whilst working alongside a historicized medium in interchangeable, contemporary frameworks.
Batoeva’s knowing and adept handling of materials (such as paint, plaster and tar) is otherwise hidden as she allows the media itself to define and inform her transient planes. While her actions are explicable and resolute - swipes, scratches, stokes and drags - their end-form lingers beyond a literal interpretation. Letting her physical materials directly inform her gestures, the subsequent alchemy within her works deftly blurs the line between form and abstraction. Action is sublimated by moments of repose; figuration is obscured by seemingly organic imprinting. Batoeva’s ability to mysteriously isolate and dichotomize her work’s materiality begets a practice in rhythmic flux over its own enigmatic origin.
Stefania Batoeva (b. 1981, Sofia, Bulgaria) lives and works in London.
