Art Gallery
Le Papillon
is delighted to be the temporary home from March 26 to April 22, 2026, of the latest works by the magnificent artist Stanimir Videv, presented on the eve of his birthday. “Game” of colorful fragments, forms, and volumes is the unifying theme of his current exhibition of 19 canvases.
Behind the word “game” lies the natural inclination
of Videv to seek challenge and to enjoy creating new harmonies through an intuitive, primal gesture in painterly matter. The collages on canvas created for this exhibition not only overcome the original figure of the object and transform it into a semi‑abstract notation of a specific place and person, but also reflect his desire to transcend his own stereotypes. This is also the essence of his deep emotional relationship with the forms shaped by landscapes and people with their occupations, passing through the artist’s lived experience. According to Videv, “a painting comes into being when you have sufficiently exhausted the canvas and the palette; for me – between the fifth and seventh time I place it on the easel. More than once I have completely ruined a painting and created an entirely new one, or turned it around and realized it was already finished.”
The appearances of Stanimir Videv are eagerly anticipated, and his work is followed by numerous admirers in Bulgaria and abroad. Abstract, semi‑abstract, or figurative – each of his works carries his recognizable manner of applying complex, tonally structured brushstrokes and then energetically treating and manipulating them. His canvases radiate great energy, impressing with the decisive application of colors through layering and removing paint to achieve light.
Stanimir Videv
possesses not only a distinctive, expressive, and almost abstract artistic style.
He is an authentic and sincere painter, a bearer of the characteristic signature of the Plovdiv painting school. His undeniable talent has made him over the years one of the highly respected artists with a strong presence in Bulgarian cultural life – valued both in artistic circles by prominent actors, writers, and painters, and by collectors and admirers, including many diplomats, politicians, and musicians. His powerful painting follows
his philosophy of color balance, complex composite nuances, and the creation of a rich chromatic sense of the emotional presence of the subject. The structures and figures he builds follow a scientific concept of dynamic compositions formed from the main separate elements of the depicted object, harmonized so skillfully that they are perceived as a whole. They resemble jazz‑like color patches, yet with a convincing sense of unity of the image and a traceable relationship between its components. These are often seemingly concrete landscapes that are, in fact, plastic combinations of hues and volumes with multilayered color fractures, constructed by the artist’s skilled hand in a rhythm of warm and cool tones. Videv draws inspiration from the pulse and life of the city of Plovdiv, yet in his works he moves beyond the literal, preserving a recognizable stroke while playfully using his characteristic techniques of scraping, layering, and leaving reliefs, fragmenting the whole into small, self‑contained images. Videv’s painting lies on the border between the real and the abstract, and to truly experience it requires attention and sensitivity. Without striving to build compositional centers, the artist manages, through masterful color handling alone, to achieve several spatial planes. Always honest in his art, creating music out of complex colors, he produces convincingly vivid paintings whose abstract compositions relax the mind and spark the imagination. The artist’s various emotional and physical states, as well as everyday events that stir his thoughts, are his main creative driving force.
In search of the game of fragments, within
complex and dynamic
compositions the exhibition brings together urban landscapes and his recognizable enigmatic figurative compositions, where the image becomes a kind of mirage, hinting at a specific persona whose character the artist has sketched.
Videv loves to focus on the enigmatic female presence, captured in different states, always revealing his attitude toward the woman as muse. In this exhibition, we encounter not one but eight silhouettes, suggesting introspection, gentle emotionality, and something left unsaid.
