Vanya, the coordinator of Context Plovdiv sent me to Zdravko, a warm-hearted soul that showed his studio and took the time to explain me his artistic journey. He is a psychologist turned into an artist at a difficult stage in life. During travelling he met creative people that introduced him to the artistic (ab)use of textile and fabric. It was a revelation and the artistic process made him channel his energy in the direction of peace and love.
Zdravko pored me some oldskool café-al-la-turca and schooled me about textile and fabric. Although he sometimes creates commissioned work like scarfs and coats, he’s a visual artist. He explained how you can bond fabrics so you can work seamless and how fine materials like silk can be infused into it: For mechanical reasons (reinforcement) and of coursefor aesthetics.
He is driven by energy and the love of the materials. When he creates, he has to calculate maths (because it’s applied wet and shrinks 50%) but works mainly on improvisation. It results in artworks that has a lot in common with paintings. Different coloured materials are infused into and on top of each other.
While smoking a cigarillo on the terrace he explained me the Bulgarian mode of survival: It’s a country that’s considered very poor. But people don’t act like that. They help each other all the time but breaking trust is a point of no return.
Those are great values, I couldn’t agree more.