as seen by Dimitar Bardarsky
Chief expert at the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria
Well, as the old Chinese saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. I do not feel inspired enough to try and match Antonia’s drawing with words of my own. But I may say something about the artist for I am privileged to know her.
Antonia is a young woman from Varna - this may seem trivial but is truer than it seems.
She is young in flesh as well as in spirit, which is rare and beautiful. Even the child is alive in her, in her playfulness, in her fantasies, in her pure joy of creating images and establishing every time a fresh relation with the things and the people around her.
She is a woman who understands (sorry, I just plunged into that old favourite Beatles song,
so appropriate here, you know how it goes on). She feels her pencils and papers as if they were a newborn child that has to be lead into a magical world and she inhabits it with men and women who are entangled in attraction and distrust, who reach for each other only to hide behind masks. Fragile and vulnerable, yet daring creatures, forever immersed in that oldest of games, the pursuit of love, bliss and self attainment.
And she is from Varna, a lovely and lively Bulgarian city on the Black Sea coast where museums treasure traces of ancient civilisations and long sandy beaches in the hot summer sun seduce one’s skin and bones into submitting to the delightful transience of the fleeting moments. And one’s eyes chase the waves across the horizon triggering the curiosity and capturing the imagination. It is a wild adventure of the senses which will lead past the sirens of flash and fashion to anchor the desires at dusk in the safe haven of the hearts and souls of the chosen few.
Sail on Silver Girl, (ah, melodies & memories!) sail on and build your own true bridge over
the troubled waters of our mysterious lives.