|
Sofia City Art Gallery and The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate present
Tactile Ceramics
Art for visually impaired people. This is the shortest description of the project, on which Ivan Kanchev has been working for seven years now and which may reasonably be defined as unique. There have not been such projects in Bulgaria and according to the artist’s research, his ceramics has no analogue in the world.
Ivan Kanchev started his work on the project as a second-year Ceramics student (1997) at the National Academy of Fine Arts. He conducted profound research showing that tactile is the prevailing mental imagery of the visually impaired. In order to experience pleasure from the contact with a certain shape, the latter has to evoke pleasant feelings and warmth as well as to call forth a sense of security and tranquility, to be firm – the visually impaireds’ aesthetical criteria for the beautiful are determined by the contact with a smooth, full and firm form. The artist unites in his works the positions of both the sighted and the visually impaired, thus striving for uniting and eliminating of the boundaries of difference.
Ivan Kanchev’s first work for the visually impaired is functional – a tea set, titled “Warmth”. On the surface of some of the objects the artist inscribed in Braille texts by Bulgarian poets and excerpts from the Bible. The shapes that the artist creates later on are related to the exquisite-abstract and most often soar up. Touching them with closed eyes makes hands reach for the heights in the aspiration to enfold space. A closer scrutiny of the seemingly abstract forms reveals interwoven, almost super terrestrial in their immaterialness fine relieves. The exquisitely sculpted human figures are in constant motion, interacting in the pursuing of goodness, purity and perfection.
Since 1997 till the present Ivan Kanchev has created numerous tri-dimensional sculptures, vessels and relieves. His last works go back again to utilitarianism but also preserve their purely aesthetic effect. Apart from articles the artist also creates delicate drawings, dedicated to the issues of the visually impaired.
Ivan Kanchev’s art has a noble mission – to enrich the ones it reaches. It is the artist’s idea to establish a centre with a gallery for pieces of art by visually impaired artists and with a school for development of skills, which incorporate the visually impaired into the world.
Svetla Petkova
Ivan Kanchev was born in 1973 in the city of Rousse. He graduated at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Troyan, major Ceramics. In 2000 Ivan Kanchev graduated from the National Art Academy, major Ceramics, in the Assoc. Professor Ivana Eneva’s class.
During the course of his study Ivan Kanchev won an award in a drawing contest. Up to now he has made several one-man shows - in Sofia, Rousse, Yambol, Blagoevgrad as well as taken part in collective exhibitions.
The event is realised with the help of the St. Cyril and St. Methodius International Foundation
back to Visual arts
|
