Curator: Andreya Gandeva
Creative mediator: Mariela Gemisheva
18.01.2024 – 02.02.2024
Opening: 18.01.2024 (Thursday) – 18:00 – 21:00
Little Bird Place Gallery, 1000 Sofia, 7 “11ti August” Str.
See all works from the exhibition HERE!
Nevelin Ivanov’s second solo exhibition continues to deal with the topic of mental health, presented in his first solo project – “If I Had a Pig, I Would Name It Nevo”. The artist, who has been able to open up about his problems with bulimia, an eating disorder that is thought of more as a female one, has now found a way to overcome it. He has accepted his body and even loved his image, but at what cost? Overcoming one condition is replaced with another – the constant desire for sex. This project aims to figuratively bring the audience into the most intimate corners of the author’s mind by symbolically transporting him to his bedroom. The place where we are truly ourselves. The bedroom as a field for analyzing and making sense of the naked body, as well as a space for looking into ourselves. In this way, one kind of addiction is displaced to make way for a new one.
The need to be liked, desired, loved becomes an addiction. What better way to like yourself if not through the others? Through embroidery and the constant penetration of the needle into the fabric, reminiscent of the real act of penetration, the artist depicts different parts of his body on pillows and invites the audience to lie down with him. On two canvases, the artist has embroidered self-portraits, making reference to both painting and to psychoanalysis and inward looking.The addiction to one’s own image has taken over the space to become a work of art.
Nevelin Ivanov was born in 2002 in Burgas. He is a fashion design student at the National Academy of Arts. In his work he is experimenting in the field of graphics, painting and conceptual fashion. His first solo exhibition “If I Had a Pig, I Would Name It Nevo” (2023) is held in the form of a pop-up event at the Little Bird Place Gallery, Sofia. Nevelin has participated in several group exhibitions and fashion performances, some of which are: “Играчка-плачка”, ICA Gallery, Sofia (2023); Defy The Status Quo, Æther Haga, The Hague, Netherlands (2023)/ DOZA, Sofia (2023); Art fashion performance, Academy Gallery, Sofia (2023).
