Biography
Sophia Grancharova was born in 1994 in the city of Sofia. She graduated with a BA of Fine Arts at ESAM (École Supérieure d'Arts et Médias) in Caen, France (2016). She participated in the educational program “Close Encounters – Visual Dialogues / School4artists” of the ICA-Sofia (2017) and in the experimental curatorial school at Swimming Pool in Sofia (2018). In 2019 she starts her MA in Visual arts at Luca School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium.
Among her participations in group exhibitions are: “Sofia Art Book Fair”, Sofia, Bulgaria (2017); “Close Encounters, School4artists”, ICA Sofia, (2017); “Art Start - Young Artists to Follow in 2018”, group exhibition, “Credo Bonum gallery”; BAZA award nominees exhibition, Sofia City Art Gallery (2018); “Alter Me&Alter You”, group exhibition at Goethe Institut Sofia, (2018); “Kodex (10)”, Goethe Institut Sofia (2019).
In 2018 she initiated her first curatorial project entitled "Space for Sparkling Water" in a hotel room at Dieter Hotel, Sofia, together with the artist Jordan Derrien. "Bad Relationships" is her first solo exhibition, "Gallery 2.0", Sofia, (2018). In the autumn of 2019 her second solo exhibition takes place at Vaska Emanouilova Gallery with curator Daniela Radeva.
About
I’m interested in how images in popular culture, mass media or another kind of social distribution of information, function once that they lose their context of validity – when the message of the image is separated from its primary task. I try to playfully take the position of a kind of a mediator between the image itself and its variable functions.
I experiment with the process of transmitting information from one object to another. By using a variety of artistic gestures (artbooks, photography, installations, performance, etc.), I often re- contextualize the visual message to achieve a critical statement on its possibilities of existence.
Another key element of my artistic interests is the human body, it's visual presence, it's weight and flexibility, it's endless possibilities for performance. Along with the human body, fashion, textiles and tactility are essential elements in my projects.
- Sophia Grancharova
Gallery
Sophia Grancharova
Points of contact 2, 2016.
Performance
Details
- Photographer: Michele Gottstein
- Material: Cotton clothes, a brochure with instructions
Sophia Grancharova
Fantasies, Feelings and Fun, 2017.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Sophia Grancharova
- Material: Tyvek paper, helium balloons
- Description: Clothes are carriers of meaning that often offers different emotions, sensations and fantasies. In mass fashion, these states are represented by phrases and slogans, advertising campaigns, and events that add high emotional value to the material product.
One of the main features of this type of fashion is how quickly the new things are getting old-fashioned. This is one of the reasons for the feeling that “we have nothing to wear”, and the overconsumption of textile products is a result. The emotion that it signifies is obsolete.
The project “Fantasies, feelings and fun” uses details of a found photograph and several old fashion magazines. The images are deeply fragmented, the focus falling on individual ele- ments
like parts of the human body, colors, cloths, materials, some falling light. Each image shows a piece of clothing that also carries a certain fantasy or emotion inspired by existing advertising campaigns. Every emotion hangs and depends on a helium balloon that will determine how long it will be up to date before falling to the ground and being forgotten.