|
ïåòåð öàíåâ/peter tzanev
|
||
|
|
Peter Tzanev is an artist whom we can relate to the tradition of the multiple waves of the expressionism of the XXth century art. The method of expression and the technique he applies cannot be defined as strictly expressionistic. The use of this technology would refer to the unusual hidden strain, which lies in the imagery of his posters. The exhibition in XXL art gallery introduces us to the poetics of images of schizophrenic humanoids – images tense with psychic extreme that can be defined as “images beyond themselves”. As far as technique is concerned this is digital print on paper that refers to the painted and photographic elements of the image in different ways. The result is a comlpex alloy of photography and painting. The photography is used as the solid base onto which the artist has laid the fine “embroidery” of the painting with the help of a feather or a very fine brush. With a precision of the hand – in some of the works the artist has covered the photographic image densely with white china ink, which reminds us of scaly skin or chain armour. The rational outside interference turns the photography into something different, formidable and often incomprehensible, as if coming out of someone’s unsound fantasy. The digital enlargement and print creates an additional contrast between the photography and the white trail of the feather. The magnification of the dimensions further softens the photographic base while the line persists in its sharpness. The line is striking in its crude manifestation and creating the strain in the otherwise indifferent advertising or other banal photography. Those images of double plastic coding are perverse, horrid; they do not evoke our perception of “the self-explanatory aesthetics of existence” and if they can be clearly sensed, they can scarcely be comprehended without additional information. As already mentioned, Peter Tzanev works rationally and his approach towards the image is expressively intellectual. His professional interest in psychopathology and its manifestation in art stands behind the figurativeness of the images. He is the author of one of the best books on the art of the mentally ill, published in Bulgaria. Psychopathology and creativity is a huge topic in the art of the XX c. The existence of images in the subconscious, the image of illness have moved many of the renowned authors of our time. The expressionists discovered the formal unorthodox symbolics of the mentally ill, while the surrealists raised madness on a pedestal as the source of inspiration and creativity. Peter Tzanev inherited this trait of vanguards – while eliminating and decreasing the utopian elements, born in the historic encounter between art and psychopathology. His attitude is that of a late modernist who senses and understands the cultural role of the tragic shriek of the psychic drama. Svilen Stefanov |
|
