"Painting Revelations" – Retrospective Exhibition by Dora Boneva

Dora Boneva /1936-2021/ “Painting Revelations” retrospective exhibition 11 April - 07 May 2023

We are pleased to invite you to our upcoming exhibition "Painting Revelations", presenting a look at the different stages in Dora Boneva's work. It is not by chance that we have chosen the opening date to be April 11, which also coincides with her birthday. Accompanying the exhibition will be the catalog "Dora Boneva, presented by Ivan Marazov", which was printed at the beginning of this year. The text below was prepared by Marta Levcheva, Dora Boneva's daughter. In the cultural oasis of Nuance Gallery, you will have the opportunity to see Dora Boneva's "Painting Revelations" and look from an interesting point of view, without pretensions to a comprehensive retrospective. Her early unshown works, works from the 50s and 60s and those painted before 2021 may surprise viewers. You will see sketches, drawings, painting canvases and cardboards, as well as a "real light extravaganza" in the painting “Ballet Dancers” - 1959, as Prof. Ivan Marazov calls it.

All who knew her will remember her smelling of turpentine with a brush or a long black cigarette in hand (or both), sometimes with a cup of coffee, but always very beautiful! We also see this extremely elegant presence with ease and casual distance in her paintings, but only at first glance. Then comes the dense and deep painting. Petar Uvaliev calls the brush "heavy" and masculine - in the best sense, and at the same time it is delicate and contemplative, as Prof. Marazov calls it.