Hristo Hristov - painting and sculpture exhibition

About this event

Forms and reliefs in color and in bronze, created "Between the day and the night" by the talented and beloved Varna sculptor and artist - Hristo Hristov inhabit the two exhibition spaces of the Art Gallery Le Papillon from May 21 to June 17, 2026. The exhibition brings together his latest thoughts and emotional interpretations in works inspired by the silence of morning and dusk. "Between Day and Night" harmonizes the tireless spirit of Christo and his sometimes explosive, sometimes calm as a river, searches for the forms of color, their mixing in complex tones, contrasts and recently layering from dark to light. We can notice that while in sculpture Hristov seeks the pure lightness of the silhouette, in painting he moves along the line of 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 feels the rhythm and musical harmonies that abstractionism usually calls to mind. Whether Christo creates in the moments of the golden hour "Between Day and Night", when the light diminishes the brilliance of the day and the colors predominate in orange-pink to red, or in other moments of mental clarity, his works always bear his signature signature. The visual and emotional accumulations in the artist's soul unite history, reliefs from antiquity, but also purely Christian traditions. We recognize the symbolism of the curve of the moon in all its silhouettes, the outstretched hands, reminiscent of a cross and the directions of energies, the deep relief of figures or giving the feeling of the bark of a tree. Hristo Hristov creates iconic images and codes through which we can distinguish elements of this heritage and his interpretation of the themes that excite him, and also in the choice of figurative-plastic language in sculptural or painting 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. Boldness, courage, enigmaticity with colorful accents stand out in his pictorial pursuits in recent years. The paintings express a beautiful abstract painting, unfolding the color layers in the soul of a creator, captivated by the form and its line. The author's typical style of expressing himself on the canvas with a rigidity intertwined with the lines of silhouettes, images, signs, codes and reliefs asserts the independence, freedom and authenticity of his painting, but also shows the interrelationship and references to his typical forms and figures of his sculptures. Hristov suggests cutting up the space from the heavy metal, and his experienced skillful hands seem to tame the material and create an impressive gallery of expressive images with a monumental sound and modern plastic solutions. And in his paintings, Hristo Hristov approaches uncompromisingly, his painting is solid, seen in its semantic monolithicity, giving sensory expression to the ideas he has, sought and thought in colors and shapes before they are created three-dimensionally, like sculptures and complementing them in a magnificent way. His canvases have an abstract sound in a soothing color 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 each completes itself. Over the years, his work captivated the foreign public in his successful performances in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Poland, not only in exhibitions, but also through the presence of his works in a number of foreign collections and proves that he is not limited to the local, but meets the aesthetic understanding and love of people of different nationalities and cultures.