The Dechko Uzunov Art Gallery is opening its new 2022 season with the first exhibition of the Meetings Beyond Time Programme. Under the programme, the gallery will be inviting contemporary artists to put up specially created exhibits inspired by the works of the great Bulgarian artist and intellectual Dechko Uzunov. The newly created works of the selected artist will be presented alongside the works they were inspired by at the Dechko Uzunov Art Gallery, a branch of the Sofia City Art Gallery.

One of Dechko Uzunov’s portraits has remained engraved on my mind ever since I saw it at an exhibition of the artist’s work put up in 1985 at the Gallery of the Union of Bulgarian Artists on 6 Shipka St. What we have lived through with the help of our senses sinks down into the depths of our subconsciousness where it turns into an impression (samskara). The strong emotional experiences that shape our outlook and taste keep coming back to us subconsciously throughout our whole lives.

This experience and the musings of Vasil Abadhziev, artist, scenographer and photographer, provided the basis for the exhibition Dechko Uzunov/ Vasil Abadhziev. Self-portraits. A dialogue across time between the two artists from different generations allows viewers to ‘peek inside the head’ of an artist, while ‘communicating’ with the legacy of another. Dechko Uzunov’s works featured in the exhibition were carefully selected by Vasil Abadhziev from among his best-known signature works, namely Self-portrait with Saints, Portrait (Self-portrait), Family Portrait (Self-portrait with Olga), as well as his many self-portrait drawings. They are the inspiration for the new self-portraits specially created for the exhibition. Regarding the latter and the experience of creating one’s own image Vasil Abadzhiev shares, ‘Self-portrait as in trying to remain by yourself is a painful process that can be compared to attempting to get out of a confined space. It affords the opportunity not only to remain by yourself, but also to meet yourself and ask yourself questions about your true nature. If you do not have a clear idea of what you are like, you are overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness at such moments.’ Thus expressed, the specificity of the artist’s sensitivity helps viewers not only to look ‘through the eyes of an artist’, but also to take an in-depth look at the artist’s personality and the complex interaction of emotion, knowledge, logic and sensitivity it is made up of. It is this interaction combined with the impressions of Dechko Uzunov’s work through the years that led Vasil Abadhziev to create Self-portraits, including The Darkness of Emptiness, Sleeplessness, the triptych The Road Up and the Road Down are One and the Same, I Was Here, etc.

The exhibition Vasil Abadhziev. Self-portrait features works belonging to the permanent collections of the Dechko Uzunov Art Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, as well as works specially created for the exhibition by Vasil Abadhziev. The project was brought to life with kind