Hristo Hristov - painting and sculpture exhibition

About this event

Forms and reliefs in color and in bronze, created "Between Day and Night" by the talented and beloved Varna sculptor and painter Hristo Hristov, inhabit the two exhibition spaces of Le Papillon Art Gallery from 21 May to 17 June 2026. The exposition brings together his latest reflections and emotional interpretations in works inspired by the silence of morning and dusk. "Between Day and Night," Hristo's tireless spirit harmonizes with his sometimes explosive, sometimes river-calm explorations of the forms of color, their blending into complex tones, contrasts and, more recently, layering from dark to light. We can observe that while in sculpture Hristov seeks the clean lightness of the silhouette, in painting he moves along the line of the abstract presence of the figure and its silhouette in space, as if in diverging coordinate systems. In fact, the more abstract and generalized his painting becomes, the more one senses the rhythm and musical harmonies that abstractionism usually evokes in the mind. Whether Hristo creates in the moments of the golden hour "Between Day and Night," when the light dims the brilliance of day and colors predominate in orange-pink to red, or in other moments of mental clarity, his works always bear his characteristic signature. The visual and emotional accumulations in the artist's soul unite history, reliefs from antiquity, but also from purely Christian traditions. We recognize the symbolism of the curve of the moon in all his silhouettes, the outstretched arms reminiscent of a cross and the directions of energies, the deep relief of figures or those giving the sense of tree bark. Hristo Hristov creates iconic images and codes through which we distinguish elements of this heritage and his interpretation of the themes that move him, as well as in his choice of figurative-plastic language in his sculptural or painterly works. Hristo Hristov is not only an established name in contemporary Bulgarian art, but is also recognized as one of the best Bulgarian sculptors with an authentic, recognizable style. In his painterly explorations in recent years, boldness, courage, and enigmatic quality with colorful accents stand out. The paintings express wonderful abstract painting, unfolding the color layerings in the soul of an artist captivated by form and its line. The author's typical style of expressing himself on the canvas with firmness, intertwined with the lines of silhouettes, images, signs, codes and reliefs, affirms the independence, freedom and authenticity of his painting, but also shows the interconnection and references to his typical forms and figures of his sculptures. Hristov conveys the cutting of space by heavy metal, while his experienced, skilled hands seem to tame the material and create an impressive gallery of expressive images with monumental resonance and modern plastic solutions. In his paintings too, Hristo Hristov takes an uncompromising approach; his painting is dense, seen in its semantic monolithic quality, giving sensory expression to the ideas he has, sought and conceived in colors and forms before being created three-dimensionally as sculptures and complementing them in a magnificent way. His canvases have an abstract resonance in a soothing palette with bright accents, with figurative references to his form and sculpture, but each one awakens associative suggestions and questions in the viewer and creates a sense of a story that everyone completes for themselves. Over the years, his work has also captivated foreign audiences in successful presentations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, France, and Poland not only in exhibitions, but also through the presence of his works in a number of foreign collections, proving that he is not limited to the local, but meets the aesthetic understanding and love of people from different nationalities and cultures.