site.bta"Aftermaths": An Abstract Reflection on the Wars Within and Around Us by Painter Kiril Yakimov

Artist Kiril Yakimov reflects on war, the pandemic and the hidden residues of conflict in an exhibition of abstract paintings in Sofia. The show, called Aftermaths, will be held at the Contrast Gallery at 49 Tsar Samuil Street, opening on February 17 at 6:30pm, to run until March 10, the hosts said on Monday.

The canvases included in the exhibition were created over the last four years and are a reworking of the accumulated tension and fear caused by the pandemic and the wars around and within us. At a time when we live in a constant stream of images of destruction, frontlines and brutality, Yakimov does not paint the events themselves, but their residue. Aftermaths does not depict war. It works with what remains after it.

Yakimov commented: "I had no choice. I had to paint them. My generation has witnessed many wars, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East. For a long time, we lived with the idea that we were living in peace – complete nonsense. War has always been here. But today's wars happen in a different context. They reveal another war – inside societies. Hatred that operates at all levels. That frightens me even more than the combat itself."

The artist works in the field of pure abstract painting. In the works presented in this exhibition, the material is visibly tense. The surfaces have been built up and destroyed repeatedly. Some of the compositions bear traces of earlier, erased versions, remnants of other paintings that never fully materialized. This accumulation is not an effect, but a method, which explores how the image collapses under the weight of excessive visibility.

Yakimov said: "Space is shaped through accumulation. I often repaint, leaving parts of a previous painting. I work on old canvases. I turn one painting into something completely different."

Yakimov rarely appears in public. He said: "Somehow I stayed on the sidelines. I'm not looking for excuses. It's not a pose. I simply had no desire. Maybe it's a matter of character. I did not want – and could not – be part of a group or community. That has always been difficult for me."

The curator, Ivo Milev, arranges the exhibition as a series of states – not as a narrative, but as a gradual entry into a world where aggression and fear are transformed into plastic energy.

Aftermaths is about the time we live in, a time in which war is again central, not peripheral. But it does not shout. It insists. And it makes visible not the event, but the way we experience it beneath the surface of everyday life.

Kiril Yakimov was born in 1967 in Sofia. In 1994, he graduated in mural painting from the National Academy of Arts. Later, Yakimov turned to the design and spatial arrangement of television studios. In 1999, he founded Kapitel Design. He is the author of over 250 projects, including the studios for the news broadcasts of BNT, bTV and Nova TV, as well as Nova's morning show. His projects have also included the houses and live studios for various seasons of the TV reality shows "Big Brother" and "VIP Brother," and the sets for the shows "Stani Bogat" ("Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"), "The Magnificent Six," "Dancing Stars 1," "VIP Dance," "The Hour of Truth," "Station Nova" and others.