EXPLORATIONS & REVELATIONS > Writings

Sofia Bachvarova 's artistic universe resides within an eternal twilight. Her works generate perpetual enigma. The paintings, objects, and installations possess an enthralling magnetism that draw us into a haunting, mysterious, and mystical dream- space that is as deep as it is disturbing. I find myself lost inside a land of lingering enchantment and at the same time, like a fairy tale, there is a palpably unsettling eeriness. Ambiguous and obscure, her art evokes traces of gothic romanticism with an undeniable beauty that brims with the baroque and bizarre.
Hers is the work of a seductive sorceress excavating from primitive sacred rituals and transforming them into a kind of 'urban witchcraft'. There's a feminine force underlying the creations, one feels as if she has secretively accessed the depths of her unconscious in order to paint us a unique realm hidden behind some distant corner of her imagination.
Bachvarova plays with our eyes; her paintings reveal as much as they conceal, much like how one sees (and doesn't see) at dusk. The paintings are partly figurative so we find ourselves in a world that is somewhat recognizable but then not really; and herein lies their intrigue. They convey the mysterious, macabre, and magical. Her sculptures and objects that hang in real space are frequently found within her painted worlds. Bachvarova's obsession with suspension, objects hung and suspended, floating in mid- air, seems to be a metaphor for the way in which her artworks leave us-- in suspense.

Deborah Zafman, Ph.D.
Zafman-Greenberg Art Advisory