Prodan Prodanov and Anastasia Gyukova have been walking a shared life path for more than 60 years. They dwell within a shared time and space. A shared home, studio. And through this exhibition, they make the choice to invite us into it. They offer us the opportunity to wander—without explanations, without editing or staging—through their studio, which preserves their decades-long artistic journey in sculpture, in painting, in experiments, in objects and documents.
It is said that an artist’s studio is more than a workshop; it is the heart of the creative process. A fortress where one can be free from societal expectations and surrender to one’s most intimate visions. A refuge where ideas are born, battles are waged with materials, emotions acquire form, colour and meaning, and the smell of turpentine and paint, scattered sketches and canvases, working tools and objects form a perfectly ordered universe. The light within it, often natural and abundant, is what further shapes both the visible and the imagined world.
The studio is a laboratory where experiments are conducted, new techniques are sought, and the boundaries of expression are explored. It bears witness to moments of euphoria at the completion of a work and to deep disappointment from inevitable failures. Whilst in their studio—surrounded by empty, unfinished, abandoned and completed works—the artist often becomes their own harshest critic and judge. This is why time there flows somehow differently, incomprehensibly to others – sometimes galloping, sometimes despairingly stretched out. Racing by or trudging along in pursuit of some idea.
The studio is a repository of thoughts, feelings, memories and longings. This is how we find it for Anastasia Gyukova and Prodan Prodanov. It is the dwelling place of their choices – the choice to begin, the choice to complete a given work, to sign it and hang it on the wall, leading to perhaps the most important choice – to share. This exhibition might be termed precisely that: a sharing. A sharing of fragments from the two artists’ studio – painting, sculpture. A wall clock that long ago ceased to keep track of time. Several photographs. And dozens of miniatures by Prodan Prodanov, approaching his 100th year, depicting his beloved sea.
