Pavlov’s painterly vocabulary uses 19th century Bulgarian icon painters as an initial inspiration through their approach to color. A point of departure related to his upbringing which, ultimately, the artist rejects by creating a universe stripped of any iconography containing symbols alluding to prescribed meanings. Instead, he paints an invented natural world, or perhaps what one sees when they dig deeper into the earth’s surface. These recent paintings suggest many things–landscape, figuration, abstraction. At times, one might be looking at rock textures or other closeups of the earth, until the forms become immense creating a vast scale within the picture plane. A way of seeing that is everchanging, as if the viewer is witnessing the shifting of tectonic plates. Pavlov’s figurative gestures are always implicit. The figure can take on many shapes and forms: the sky, mountains, stones, a single cliff or cloud. An omnipresent entity. Everywhere and nowhere. Overall, these images are abstract because the picture never defines itself.

When asked about composition in a recent interview between the artist and myself, Pavlov said, “Space is always there, and the space is not always the one we are seeing with our material eyes, the ‘other space’ that is not to perceive, is my approach to the form of space…” (…)

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Text (excerpt) by Cy Schnabel from “Milko Pavlov – Recently Ahead”, edition published by ONE+ Gallery, Sofia 2022

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Milko Pavlov born in 1956, Aytos Bulgaria.

After short hesitation, he did not apply for the Bulgarian Fine Art Academy.

His practice contains painting, graphite frottage work and water colour. The focus of his painting is the ability to create special forms and fields by mixing abstracted elements in a specific reality. Simultaneously appear biomorphic details in an emotionally charged no-horizon. Recent solo exhibitions in 2022 in Villa Magdalena, San Sebastián, Gallery ONE, Sofia and in 2020 in St. Matthäus Stiftung, Berlin.

Milko Pavlov lives and works in Berlin and Sofia.

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