One of the eternal and inevitable existential questions that has continued to preoccupy human thought throughout the centuries is that of memory, the remembered, and its discreditation, which we call forgetting. We are composed of fragments – of moments captured in the infinite flow of time. Each one of these moments is a memory, and their totality constructs the fortress of our “I” against the inevitable entropy of oblivion. For oblivion, as the poet has said, is the second death. Therefore art, in its purest form, functions as a palimpsest upon which individual consciousness continuously inscribes, erases and reconstructs its history. It is our only reliable mechanism for preserving temporality, for encapsulating emotion and transforming it into colour, form or sound that will remain as breath after us. It is precisely within this plane of profound personal reflection and artistic resistance against disappearance that Dobromir Manev’s exhibition, laconically entitled Memories, is positioned.
Dobromir Manev is not simply an artist in the conventional sense of the word. He is an artist who seems to transfer his rich experience from stage and screen directly onto canvas. His creative path, which began in theatre and cinema, where he constructed human characters through emotion and gesture, has for years been transforming into a visual narrative in which these same emotional states are achieved through light and colour. The drama of theatrical language has been replaced by the expressive power of oil painting. Like an actor who enters a role in order to experience another’s fate, the artist Manev immerses himself in his own memories in order to bring them to the surface, to purify them and to give them a new, painterly form. His art can be conceived of as a synthesis between the abstract and the figurative, where boundaries blur to leave room for what matters most – sensation. This approach is not accidental, but is a direct consequence of his cosmopolitan spirit and a life that has shifted between continents, cultures and styles.
In the canvases from the Memories cycle, the viewer is invited not simply to observe, but to participate in an intimate journey. Every brushstroke, every nuance, constructs a bridge between past and present. Manev’s poetics is marked by an optimistic filter. Herein lies the strength of his art: its ability to transform personal recollection into universal human experience. His works carry a characteristic warmth that has been noted by critics both in Bulgaria and across the ocean, including the late Kenneth Baker, art critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. This warmth is not simply a technical device, but an emotional state that the artist consciously maintains as a counterbalance to greyness and oblivion.
Dobromir Manev himself shares this internal process of selection and creation: ‘In life there are undoubtedly memories that are not pleasant, that sadden us. That’s how I’m made – the bad memories disappear somewhere, they remain behind me, they are undoubtedly deep in my consciousness; sometimes they appear in my dreams as inexplicable things, problems. But I have always looked to eliminate bad memories. When you submit to bad memories, your consciousness becomes different, your view of the world becomes different. Then you’re tired, you can’t rejoice. I usually like to rejoice in colour, in light, in freedom. That’s why things are warm. This makes an impression on all my friends and people who like my things – the warmth, the light that comes inside, the tone that is bright and warm. This is a spontaneous feeling when I begin to paint. The colours arrive in a natural way. The composition comes in a natural way. This is the result of my spirituality. This warmth comes of its own accord.’ This quotation, which can be defined as an artistic manifesto, reveals the essence of Manev’s work: art as a voluntary act of joy and spontaneity, as a conscious choice for life in light. The warmth he conveys is liberated from the weight of dark memories.
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Dobromir Manev was born in 1946. He graduated in acting from VITIZ (today NATFIZ) in Sofia, where he built an exceptionally successful career in cinema and theatre, including at the Youth Theatre. He participated in dozens of film and theatrical productions that made him one of the recognisable faces of Bulgarian stage art. In the 1990s, prompted by personal need and life changes, he discovered his second calling – painting. In this new stage of his life, Manev moved to the USA, where he began to paint and exhibit actively. His exhibitions have been presented successfully in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in art centres in San Francisco, where he has lived for many years. His works have also been shown in European capitals such as Paris, where he often spends time with his brother Nikola Manev, and Rome. Although today he is a true citizen of the world, dividing his time between San Francisco, Paris and Bulgaria, he remains deeply connected to his homeland and often draws inspiration from his restored house in the village of Slaveykovo, Dryanovo region.
