Paola Minekov
Bio
Paola Minekov has painted several major series, including the vibrant Dancers and Circus series, and dynamic Cityscapes. Her Undercurrents series explores the psychology of human relationships.
In the spring of 2012 Paola took part in a major London public art project when she was invited to paint one of 200 giant eggs in the 2012 London Faberge Big Egg Hunt. Her egg ‘Colourful World’ depicted a brightly coloured map of the globe and strongly appealed to both adults and children. It raised over £4,000 for charity in the Big Egg Hunt auction.
Also in 2012 Paola was invited to curate the Google Art Project at theZeitgeist Conference. Speakers at the invitation only event included former US President Bill Clinton and Dame Vivian Westwood.
In 2013 Paola was selected to create a 12m2 mosaic in the Students’ Union of the Institute of Education, which evolved into a community project and ultimately led to the creation of 3 additional murals. The same year Paola also received an invitation to create Twiggie, the much loved elephant of intu, sponsors of the Elephant Parade National Tour.
In 2016 Paola became one of the 20 artists selected to participate in the Dot to Dot art initiative, which launched the dot.london domain name. Dot to Dot was a digital art initiative celebrating the capital's dynamic creativity and its intersection with technology.
Paola has taken part in two critically acclaimed projects of the South London Women Artists: I’m inside, Ring the Bell, winner of the Southwark Arts Forum Award in category Visual Art in October 2013 and Pillow Talk, which has been exhibited at Uniqlo Tate Lates, BBC 100 Women and
TEDxUCLWomen.
Paola is a classically trained artist who completed her fine art education in Bulgaria and Israel. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Interactive Multimedia from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Artist Statement
To paint is my way of analysing and understanding the world. My themes are always derived from everyday experiences and impressions. In my paintings I explore topics like movement, energy, contrast and the mystery of emotions.
-- Cityscapes Series Artist Statement:
Sometimes you arrive in a strange city completely by chance and you immediately feel at home… And sometimes you may have lived there all your life, know every block of pavement as the palm of your hand, yet you just can’t shed this uneasy feeling that perhaps you don’t really belong there.
Our relationship with urban spaces is long and complex, an integral part of our evolution as species. What is it about cities that makes them special?
Is it the architecture, the private memories we share with someone special, the unique light and the smells? When I paint the cities I’ve lived in and visited, I do so from memory and a few rather vague sketches. I’m not looking for realism but for that special feeling which inspires me to return to a place, in my mind, again and again. I let my impressions of the streets, buildings and nature take over and turn into abstractions until the picture I see when I close my eyes is clear and distinctly mine.
Then I transfer it to the canvas.
-- Dancers and Circus Artist Statement:
In these paintings I often use theatrical lighting even though I rarely define the stage. Painting with a knife, I use colour rather than line to create three-dimensional spaces and a sense of movement and light.
This technique is essential to all my oil paintings, including the portraits. It allows me to determine directions, achieve complexity of colour and create textures which work with the form, all the while keeping the freedom in the painting and a uniform colour scheme.
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Paola Minekov
To paint is my way of analysing and understanding the world. My themes are always derived from everyday experiences and impressions. In my paintings I explore topics like movement, energy, contrast and the mystery of emotions.
-- Cityscapes Series Artist Statement:
Sometimes you arrive in a strange city completely by chance and you immediately feel at home… And sometimes you may have lived there all your life, know every block of pavement as the palm of your hand, yet you just can’t shed this uneasy feeling that perhaps you don’t really belong there.
Our relationship with urban spaces is long and complex, an integral part of our evolution as species. What is it about cities that makes them special?
Is it the architecture, the private memories we share with someone special, the unique light and the smells? When I paint the cities I’ve lived in and visited, I do so from memory and a few rather vague sketches. I’m not looking for realism but for that special feeling which inspires me to return to a place, in my mind, again and again. I let my impressions of the streets, buildings and nature take over and turn into abstractions until the picture I see when I close my eyes is clear and distinctly mine.
Then I transfer it to the canvas.
-- Dancers and Circus Artist Statement:
In these paintings I often use theatrical lighting even though I rarely define the stage. Painting with a knife, I use colour rather than line to create three-dimensional spaces and a sense of movement and light.
This technique is essential to all my oil paintings, including the portraits. It allows me to determine directions, achieve complexity of colour and create textures which work with the form, all the while keeping the freedom in the painting and a uniform colour scheme.
