Maria Zafirkova/Dimitar Traichev

I met Mitko in 1993, when we were already gallery owners in Frankfurt and were looking for a professional perspective on advertising and printing. The conversations with Milan Asadurov were difficult, heavy and burdened by the years before. My gaze was looking for a savior or a saving solution, but apart from Mitko, who was drawing on the computer, laughing complicitly, there was no one else in the room. This story ended successfully, or it might not have ended. Years later, in 2013, when we opened our gallery in Varna, I had to consult Dimitar Traichev again. Over the years, he had become the center of the universe of digital printing, design and teaching activities. Varna was and still is his. There is no walk around the city without his imprint. Happiness for Varna and it appreciates it.

Maria Zafirkova

The Zafirkova/Traychev tandem – authors, bound both personally and professionally. Their joint work is probably a very inspiring and complex process. Both create, experiment, build themselves and confront the audience with their themes. ZAFTRA is a microcosm with a macro impact, their ideological parameter is proverbial, their analysis – lightning fast. Their biography is too long, those interested know, and now is not the time for that.

Maria Zafirkova shows 6 new acrylic canvases from the cycle “Spontaneous”. Abstract canvases, free from pretentiousness, strong in their impact, worked with a brush, roller, spatula and pencil. She calls her painting ordinary, in short, ordinary.

Dimitar Traichev presents for the first time in Varna the digital series “Si vis pacem, para bellum”. If you want peace, prepare for war, or prepare for a parabellum, for a pistol. A topical topic, it is eternal and eternally cruel. Weapons continue to fascinate, the zone of wars today is as wide as ever.

The third, joint part of the exhibition is “On Barefoot” and represents 4 directly scanned assemblages, deployed to 12 variants with different dynamics. This is a project for a 1999 calendar for a hosiery manufacturer.