About the artist
VasilNikolaevVasilev
Bulgarian artist from Varna — painting, printmaking and sculpture.
Biography
- Born
- 9 February 1957, Zmeyno
- Education
- Painting, St. Cyril and St. Methodius University, 1982
- Media
- Painting, printmaking, sculpture
- Lives and works
- Varna and Zmeyno
Vasil Nikolaev Vasilev was born on 9 February 1957 in the village of Zmeyno, Omurtag municipality. In 1982 he graduated in Painting from St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo.
He began his path as an artist in the mid-1980s in Varna, where he joined one of the strongest artistic communities of the time. In 1985 he was among the group of artists who staged a large painting-and-music performance at the Archaeological Museum in Varna.
He works mainly in painting, but also in printmaking and sculpture, combining wood, stone and metal. He has had more than twenty solo exhibitions — in Varna, Sofia, Ruse, Heidelberg, Moscow and the Netherlands — and has taken part in numerous group shows in Europe and Canada, including more than ten editions of the International Print Biennial in Varna and exhibitions in Maastricht, Ljubljana and Bitola.
He lives and works in Varna and Zmeyno.
“With his deeply sensuous nature and an almost super-intuitive feeling, Vasil Vasilev blends the earthly and the heavenly with remarkable ease, turning them in the end into a spiritual and captivating painterly matter.”
Career
- 1957
Born in the village of Zmeyno, Omurtag municipality.
- 1982
Graduates in Painting from St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo.
- 1984
First solo exhibition.
- 1985
Takes part in a painting-and-music performance at the Archaeological Museum in Varna.
- 2015
“Varna” Award for establishing high artistic values in contemporary Bulgarian painting.
- 2019
“Summer Walk along the Largo”, Largo Art Gallery, Varna.
- 2022
First solo exhibition at Astry Gallery, Sofia.
- 2024
“Summer Walk along the Largo”, Largo Art Gallery, Varna.
- 2025
“Painting” — solo exhibition, Astry Gallery, Sofia.
Collections
- National Art Gallery, Sofia
- City Art Gallery, Varna
- City Art Gallery, Burgas
- Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Private collections in
BulgariaRussiaUSASpainNorwayItalyNetherlandsSwitzerlandFranceJapan
Others about Vasil
“Vasil Vasilev does not paint what can be seen; he tries to look behind it — to use the more precise word, beyond it.”
“For Vasil N. Vasilev these are the foundations — the light of the sacred and the shadow of the bodily.”