Dimitar Genchev

Dimitar Genchev (1985, BG) lives and works in Bulgaria and Amsterdam. He studied at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, BG, and the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) and was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

In his life-size paintings Dimitar Genchev (1985, Plovdiv, Bulgaria) alternates between different textures and intensities of materials such as oil paint and epoxy resins. As a virtuously skilled figurative painter, Genchev transforms the flat surface of his paintings into almost tangible, three-dimensional environments that are as wondrous as they are a testimony to the artist’s abilities with his medium. He has a strong personal connection with the banal and intimate scenes in our everyday life and their hidden and hard to find beauty. This mundane subject matter is converted into uncanny and sometimes surrealistic scenes by the use of contrasting styles and techniques that appear alien to its surroundings. By changing rhythms in color, texture, structure and subject matter Genchev converts the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Dimitar; ‘‘if you observe things for a long time, you start to love them.’’ Lovingly, he observes how light touches the surfaces and structures of life, from soft skinned bodies, glazed ceramics to rusty iron or peeling walls. Genche­v depicts the world around him, but never simply copies it. Striving to renew the tradition of painting, in the past ten years he has been experimenting with different paints and ways of depicting reality. Hyper realistic elements emerge from abstract painting surfaces. Aided by the computer, he fuses strange motifs into hybrid, dreamlike sceneries. Or he combines different viewpoints, zooming in or out, as if he moves around while painting, resulting in a cinematic effect. Triggering our perception, he creates a mysterious world in which nothing is what it seems.

Painting what he observes around him, sometimes extended with motifs he finds on the Internet, the viewer is familiarized with Genchev’s life in post-Communist Bulgaria. You peek into chaotic backyards, sunlit rooms with outdated furniture, join his family around the table, spend hot summers near the Black Sea, or enter derelict manufacturing plants, his latest topic, revealing the pitfalls of the Communist system and the impact of passing time.

Prizes, Fellowships, Grants:

2016 – 2017 Project Investment for Artists, Mondriaan Fund, NL

2016 National prizes, Alianz Bulgaria, Painting prize for the region of Plovdiv

2014 Contribution for Emerging Artists, Mondriaan Fund, NL

2012 Buning Brongers painting prize, Amsterdam, NL

2009 Grand prize, Competition for the awards of St. Cyril and St. Methodius International Foundation, Sofia, BG

2008 Grand prize, Competition for the awards of Societe Generale Expressbank, Sofia, BG