Exhibition "Svetlin Rusev. Painting. Favorites. 1988-2018"

The Russian Academy of Arts, the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in the Russian Federation, with the assistance of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Moscow, present the exhibition “Svetlin Rusev. Painting. Favorites. 1988-2018. " The exposition will comprise more than 50 works by the famous Bulgarian artist, icon painter, cultural figure and art collector Svetlin Rusev, reflecting the main stages of the master’s work.

Multi-figure compositions, portraits, landscapes, monumental paintings by the artist are a constant search for the spiritual principle and a tireless attempt to rethink the philosophical reality each time. His works through a special plastic expressiveness affect the emotional state of the viewer. Everyday and trivial here takes on the meaning of something fatal. Prose and everyday sounds with the intonation of harsh poetry. The author’s plein air painting leads us along empty paths, through bare fields under a gloomy sky, long and deserted roads that go up to gloomy horizons. Often in his figurative compositions, the artist refers to the most difficult episodes of our history. The work of the painter, daring to reflect the tragedy of being, includes works inspired by clear, beautiful feelings.

Svetlin Rusev was born in the city of Plevna (Bulgaria) in 1933. In 1959 he graduated from the Art Academy in Sofia with a degree in Painting with Professor Dechko Uzunov. From 1975, Rusev became a professor at the Academy of Arts, from 1973 to 1985 he was chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Artists, and from 1985 to 1988, he was director of the National Art Gallery. In 1985, he presented his hometown with his collection of Bulgarian, African and Oriental art, which served as the basis for a permanent gallery named after the donor. Along with numerous easel works, Rusev created monumental murals of the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called and St. Helena in California, as well as the icons and murals of the Church of St. Paraskeva in s. Rupee, where the master has developed and implemented his innovative concept of religious art.

The artist is an academician of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, a corresponding member of the Künstlerhaus (Vienna), a member of the Royal Flemish Academy (Belgium), an honorary foreign member of the Russian Academy of Arts, a member of the Medici Academy, a member of the Autumn Salon DʻOton (Paris) and the Nika- Kai "(Tokyo).

The artist’s work is well known both at home and abroad. He is the winner of many prestigious state awards in the field of art. The works of Svetlin Rusev are included in the collections of the National Art Gallery of the city of Sofia, all art galleries and many private collections in Bulgaria; museums, galleries and private collections in Moscow, Paris, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Aachen, Stockholm, Munich, Bonn, Hamburg, Berlin, Hesse, Rome, Bucharest, Warsaw, Dresden, Prague, Athens, Brussels, Frankfurt, Miami, Chicago, Vienna, Koblenz, Budapest, Beijing, as well as collectors and galleries of the following countries: Holland, Japan, Sweden, Greece, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Italy, Portugal, etc.

“The popularity and prestige of the artist Svetlin Rusev makes it unnecessary to use ordinary, laudatory words that have now become a protocol template. His painting has long found its way to the audience thanks to dozens of solo exhibitions around the world. A significant part of the artist’s works occupies a well-deserved place in public and private collections in several countries. Honors and awards attest to the official recognition of his talent. However, I don’t know why, exactly at this moment, when the painter is at the peak of his creative career, the memories imperceptibly lead me to the distant time of his modest debut, more than four decades ago…

The debut of each young author inevitably, in one way or another, bears the imprint of the spirit of the environment and era. In Svetlin, this influence is sometimes with the opposite sign: already in his early canvases elements of opposition to generally accepted standards are captured. Over the years, these elements will develop and solder into that organic integrity that we call the original style. Therefore, its originality was fed not by a vain desire to be non-standard, but by an elementary need to be true to oneself.

If a person has something to say, he says. Neglecting the obligatory “props” of ideological postulates in those years, Svetlin denies painting as a form of visual didactics, reaching its eternal essence of revelation. This is how his art is born - vital, but not necessarily optimistic, beautiful, but not created for decoration, emotional, but often melancholic, even tragic, which life itself sometimes turns out to be. ”

Bogomil Rainov
poet, writer and art critic

“… His paintings in a special way affect my imagination. The artist explores and moves almost within the boundaries of the impossible, mainly in search of spirituality. It’s even hard for me to call his work paintings. Rather, these are zones of silence, turned into an instrument of silence.

Why does Svetlin Rusev choose silence, or why does he prefer it? He does not paint paradise, because there they smoke incense, sing psalms all the time and breeze. Nor does hell draw, because there all the time there is noise and din, they chop wood, a fire is made, there is a whine, the cries of sinners are heard, and so on. He is looking for a man in silence to raise him above the everyday tombs. Even a running man with a torch runs in some special tense silence. This is the run of Prometheus in modernity, filled with intense silence! ”

Yordan Radichkov
writer, playwright and screenwriter

“What do Svetlin Rusev’s paintings tell me?

First of all, the paintings convince me that: "In the chaos of any present time, particles of Eternal time are floating - the specks of clay from which God conceived man."

They tell me: “Go until the horizon stops moving. The final stop of self-knowledge is an upright rejection of oneself. This is not death, but a starting point on a long journey. "

And also: “Be true to yourself. Carry your cross honestly. Only in this way will the cross turn into a crossroads, into a fork in the road, where personal destiny merges with the fate of millions. ”

And again: "Only art can turn your personal tragedy into a temptation for others, into a passionate desire to possess a particle of your pain."

And best of all, the paintings by Svetlin Rusev are despised by narcissistic monologues. Their strength lies in dialogue. But they only start talking if you ask them.

These are comforters, not divine clowns. I envy everyone who hears more than I deserve to hear. ”

Konstantin Pavlov
poet and screenwriter