To write about Kalina Taseva is a trial rather than a pleasure…
Peter Zmiycharov, 2008

Kalina Taseva is a name that has become a distinctive mark of artistry and a synonym of wise and aristocratic presence in Bulgarian art. She graduated from what is today the National Art Academy as one of the most illustrious pupils under the tutelage of the artist, stage designer and public figure Dechko Uzunov.
Kalina Taseva’s art seems to rebuff any review that may be written about it. It invites remoteness, concentration, meditation and silence. Some reviewers describe the artist as a creator of “dreamed pictorial worlds”, of visages that seen to have been “scaled off from an icon stand”, of works that are “intrinsically tense and anxious as they go forward like a ritualistic fête”. Indeed, it is a trial to write about Kalina Taseva as she brings us in touch with an art that fascinates with the magic of its colors, supple language and the commonly known yet exceptionally unique set of compositions. The artist’s career that mirrors consistently all that started far back in 1946 when 19-year old Kalina Taseva crossed the threshold of Prof. Dechko Uzunov’s painting workshop.
This exhibition is the first event of the program “Generations” by which the gallery team intends to highlight Dechko Uzunov’s enduring presence in the works of artists who he had schooled. The best of these pupils were to leave a blazing trail in art and to hand down a legacy of inimitable original artworks. Undeniably Kalina Taseva is one of those pupils. A particle of the spirit of teacher Dechko Uzunov lives on in the touch of the brush in the fatigued hand of the 91-year old artist.

Kalina Taseva was born in 1927. Dechko Uzunov was her tutor in painting between 1946 and 1951 at the National Art Academy. Her first solo exhibition was staged in 1973 in Sofia. There followed dozens of other solo exhibitions in the City Art Gallery, Blagoevgrad (1974, 1982), the UBA Gallery Shipka 6, Sofia (1981), Vladimir Dimitrov – the Master Gallery, Kyustendil (1983), the City Art Gallery, Rousse (1988), Rayko Alexiev Gallery, Sofia (1998, 2004), Galerie Titan, Frankfurt (1995), the National Palace of Culture, Sofia (2001), the National Autumn Exhibitions, Plovdiv (2003), the Prolet Gallery, Bourgas (2006) and the Sofia City Art Gallery (2008). The Arte Gallery in Sofia and the Tedi Gallery in Varna hosted her exhibitions regularly and frequently over the years. She is the winner of the awards for painting: Vladimir Dimitrov – the Master Award (1974), Zahari Zograf Award (1975); she is the Laureate of the Second Realistic Painting Triennial, (1976) and a recipient of Nikola Petrov Award (1999).