Featured Artist Vasco Kirov

Artist Vasco Kirov paints otherworldly landscapes, filled with mystery and inspired by dreams. See more of his fascinating portfolio by visiting his website.

 

 

I am almost 59 years old and have been drawing and painting from the time I was able to hold a pencil. However, I ended up getting a degree from an art school specializing in music and didn’t go back to painting for a while.

 

 

In the mid-eighties, I began a career in the arts and crafts field and subsequently worked as a blacksmith, a knife maker, an ethnic-style jewelry maker and eventually a fine jewelry designer, which is the trade I stayed with for twenty-six years.

 

 

I came back to painting in 2005, prompted by creative boredom. Although I had seven awards for excellence in diamond jewelry design, I still had to commercialize my designs in order to sell. This didn’t appeal to my creative side.

 

 

I began, in my free time, to paint oils on hardboard. Through trial and error (and a lot of reading) I began to improve my painting and developed something I felt was my style. I then started painting on canvas.

 

 

I like painting in a relatively large scale—100 x 120cm is my average size. For my method, use spontaneous paint application and I like to add a lot of texture. Ten years later, I switched from oil to acrylic as it was easier to paint large works and wasn’t as harmful to breathe in.

 

 

Acrylic on canvas became my media of choice, as it is for many artists. In 2016, I held an exhibition in Albemarle Gallery in London together with my brother Rado Kirov. There, I presented my series of abstract works I call “Gemstones.” The response I received from this exhibition made me really think about the idea of painting for a living. Easier said than done. I am working on that dream, but still making the jewelry that pays the bills.

 

 

Why do I paint? I guess I have the need to share the visions of my inner reality. I believe that most of my fellow artists are trying to do the same. I believe that everyone has a different inner reality, although on the surface our reality looks independent of our thoughts and visions.

 

 

For the past twenty years, I’ve been blessed to have lucid dreams. Any time I have one, I feel a very strong urge to share my experience. Not an easy task. In a lucid dream my consciousness creates scenes of unparalleled brightness and grandeur, underlined by ever-present mystery.

 

 

Painting is probably the most appropriate media to try to convey these dream images—or at least it’s the medium I’ve found to be the one that seems to give me closer results. My latest series of paintings are attempts to present a glimpse to this bright, lucid reality.

 

 

I was recently asked if I felt sadness when one of my paintings sells. My answer Is no. I actually feel a great deal of satisfaction and pride that someone, often on the other side of the world, understands and appreciates what I want to share to the extent that they are willing to spend a substantial amount of money to own it and enjoy it.

 

Artist Vasco Kirov invites you to follow him on Instagram and Facebook.

 

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