Today at 18:00 in the “Lubor Bayer” exhibition hall, a solo graphic exhibition of Raicho Chakarov from Stara Zagora opens.
It is on the occasion of his 75th anniversary. His name is well known in the cultural circles of the city because he managed to “lead” the group of artists through one of its most difficult periods – 1990 – 1999 as its chairman. Throughout his creative career, he simultaneously combined the role of curator in Stara Zagora, and later as a teacher in “Raina Knyaginya” secondary school.
Raicho Chakarov showed his earliest interest in drawing as a student in the 1st male high school in the city. He then studied at the Art High School in Sofia (today – NUII “Ilia Petrov”) and later at VTU “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” in the class of Prof. Nikola Gelov on “Decorative-monumental painting”. He returned to his hometown and began working with his colleagues on some of the emblematic (mostly destroyed to date) murals in Stara Zagora. Despite the strong beginning in the field of decorative-monumental art, at that time participation in OHI seemed to bring the highest prestige. And because the requirements are for covalent formats, Chakarov finds his groove in graphics and what he learned about it from his teachers in the old capital city – associate professor Ivan Marinov and assistant professor Motko Bumov. Graphics itself is hard physical work that slowly takes away from the artist’s physiology. This conclusion contributes to Chakarov’s choice in the 1990s to start working with a computer (together with Todor Arsov and Iliya Todorov, he was one of the first in the city). “In the digital world, you are not dependent on technology,” says the author, there you can recreate any graphic and drawing technique.
The paintings in the exhibition originate from an iconic numerous series of pen drawings in a small format. Created in the company of morning coffee, because “for the artist, painting is a living habit, just like breathing, while drinking coffee you look for a leaf to put something on”. At first glance, the digital images he presents in his exhibition can be defined as collages. But they are not a collage technique in the classic sense, but rather physical collages between pen drawings, digital and analog photographs, digital drawing, digital collage, and software retouching. In this sense, he collages his a priori ideas about the world, reached thanks to life. There are images of popular personalities – actors, performers, artists. Each one of them in their own way touched Raicho Chakarov and he embodied it in the image. Leonardo da Vinci becomes a symbol of the Renaissance and the complexity of the choice (artist or inventor), Angelina Jolie, Nefertiti and Venus de Milo are the symbols of beauty in diametrical eras, and musical and stage performers reveal the author’s passion for music and cinema.
It seems that collage, as an approach to art, best embodies the work of Raicho Chakarov. His creative pursuits are synthesized in a final image composed of the transitions through the various types of visual arts, but this does not happen in an effort to search for the “easy and convenient”, but with the clear idea of a sense of adequacy and belonging to the era in which we live!
You can view the graphic exhibition from April 22 to May 7, 2024.
Tags: artist Raicho Chakarov solo graphic exhibition native Stara Zagora Stara Zagora News
