Biography
Aksiniya Peycheva (b. 1990, Kyustendil, Bulgaria) lives and works in Sofia. She holds a PhD from the National Art Academy, where she graduated Mural Painting. In 2018 she completed a post-graduate class at the Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia. She is a member of the ICA since 2021. Among her solo exhibitions are: Tales of the Limit (2021) at Heerz Tooya Gallery, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria; BioRecontstruction (…of a Future Moment) (2019), ICA- Sofia Gallery, curated by Nedko Solakov, Trauma Mapping (2018), ICA-Sofia Gallery, curated by Luchezar Boyadjiev. Her works are shown at Manifesta 14, Pristina, Kosovo, Drugomore Gallery, Rijeka, Croatia; Ars Electronica Festival 2019, Austria.
About
The focus of her work is the process of ‘visual translation’ where she explores possible ways of moving pieces of information between different fields of knowledge ‘how one or several scientific fields can be combined in order to answer a question only important to art.’ She often collaborates with scientists, and her projects are also accompanied by a theoretical part, the result of a long study on certain topics, which include the topic of the visual translation of music; pain and its visual representations, or the biological errors and their consequences.
Gallery
Aksiniya Peycheva
Trauma Mapping/ Dino, 2023.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Material: print on paper
- Property of: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Description: Trauma Mapping is a transdisciplinary project, that aims to develop a methodology for creating ‘geographical’ maps of physical injuries, illnesses or other damages the body experiences. It seeks to explore the inner processes of suffering; to look for visual traces, left by traumatic events - their projection on the body, the reaction of the organism towards it, the way the cells are being rearranged by what has happened.
Survey objects are stray animals from the streets of Bulgaria that have experienced stressful situations, while living on the street - from fairly harmless to more serious ones (such as shooting) which have a lasting impact on their lives and sometimes prove to be fatal. Sometimes the traumatic process is the result of deliberately caused harm, sometimes its aetiology is vague, but the concept of continuing suffering and the visual processes that it leaves behind is still important.
The methodology of the project combines microbiology (hematology), computational geometry and geography. Every work within the project is connected to a particular case (a story) of a stray animal and the approach towards it is chosen accordingly. - Copyright: Aksiniya Peycheva
- References: https://aksiniyapeycheva.com/styled-2/photos/
Aksiniya Peycheva
Printing Error Series, 2023.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Veliko Balabanov
- Material: print on paper, 3D printed objects, video
- Property of: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Description: The ‘Printing Error Series’ shows a part of the process behind the project ‘Error Gap’. For the use of developing this installation, I bought two printers- one of them was a paper printer, the other one- a 3D. They were supposed to help me with the production of the artwork. Nevertheless, they didn’t seem to agree. As if trying to blend with the project’s topic, they started producing numerous mistakes. The paper printer was printing some odd letters, codes and numbers, no matter what file I chose, while the 3D printer started printing its own name. Again- no matter the file. Along with my lack of technical skills, the devices and I managed to produce some deeply useless objects, which were not only a source of frustration for me, but also a waste of time. I decided to focus on these mistakes and while creating some story around their appearance and by rethinking their nature, or following some made-up logic, based on a random aspect, their meanings completely shifted from being useless to being an artwork themselves, a key for developing a ‘correction’ mechanism.
- Copyright: Aksiniya Peycheva
Aksiniya Peycheva
Tales of the Limit (Part Тwo), 2022.
Painting
Details
- Photographer: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Material: drawing with bacterial culture, agar, micro mosaic, epoxy resin
- Property of: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Description: Created in collaboration with Martin Yordanov (engineer, physicist); Yordanka Dermendjieva (microbiologist)
The project is a constant dialogue between visual art, artificial intelligence, and microbiology. During this process occurs a constant transfer of the same visual information between these three fundamentally different fields.
In the first stage of the project, we take an artificially generated human face and recreate it into the field of vi- sual art in the shape of a painting. The next stage is creating a mosaic from the portrait, with round plastic dots reminiscent of a bacteria growth in a petri dish which also grows in a round shape. The final stage is recreating the mosaic in a microbiological medium. Using different pathogenic bacteria species, because of the colors they produce, the final stage is a bacterial mosaic.
By traveling from the digital medium through visual art, the non-existing human face ends up in the field of the natural world, where the laws of nature take place and decide its destiny.
While using the correct colors, there is something else that influences the image – the struggle to survive. While dwelling in the same living space, the bacteria are placed in a competitive environment – each species tries to fight for life resources. During this process, they each decide how to behave – sometimes they grow more rapidly in order to take over the space. Other times they release toxins in order to kill the other around them. In rare cases, they create ‘social distance’ between one another by making a borderline which they don’t cross. In the end, none of the strategies work, and all of the bacteria eventually die.
In any case, each decision reflects on the portrait, and the result of it is a change in the image. This is why, for instance, the face does not have eyes – one of the species grows so rapidly the bacteria in the eyes cannot grow.
The project explores how visual information becomes an indicator of the functionality of the whole system and calls into question the efficiency of the natural laws of communication on a fundamental level. Each transfer damages parts of it, but it also reflects upon the very nature of the system it belongs to. The same way the AI decides to put a pixel on a particular place, the bacteria decides how the visual image would look like, only following different laws – those of nature – since this time their purpose is also fundamentally different, related to their survival. Thus, the result is quite different – an (almost) ruined human image. - Copyright: Aksiniya Peycheva
- References: https://aksiniyapeycheva.com/styled-2/photos-3/
Aksiniya Peycheva
Tales of the Limit (Part One), 2021.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Material: drawing with bacterial culture, agar, epoxy resin
- Property of: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Description: Created in collaboration with Martin Yordanov (engineer, physicist); Yordanka Dermendjieva (microbiologist)
The project Tales of the Limit (part One) explores the laws of life organization at microbiological level as a scale model for social functionality and consists in the constant extraction of visual information reflecting the critical points in these processes.
Initially, the visual composition is generated in a nutrient agar for microbiological research, which happens “blindly”, as the result can be seen only after the bacteria begin to form colonies and become visible. In a few days when the microorganisms have grown significantly, the visual composition becomes a multi-colored abstract image. Gradually, however, the microorganisms are placed in a competitive environment - food resources are depleted and a struggle for life begins. Different species choose different strategies to deal with the situation - some of them are competitively excluded, starting to grow faster, hindering the others. In other cases, they even release toxins that kill other species. Rarely they choose another approach - harmonious coexistence, or create a social distance between them so as not to interfere. In the end, the process is chemically stopped and there is no winner.
The project focuses on those moments when the results of this competition are most obvious. Different problems in society are being called into question, and become especially visible in the context of the current pandemic, questioning the social norms and laws by which society develops in order to function properly. The consequences of these processes are as beautiful as they are contradictory in their constant rivalry, in which no one, in fact, wins. - Copyright: Aksiniya Peycheva
- References: https://aksiniyapeycheva.com/styled-2/photos-4/
Aksiniya Peycheva
BioReconstruction (…of a future moment), 2019.
Installation
Details
- Photographer: Kalin Serapionov
- Material: pencil on paper, agar-agar, epoxy resin
- Property of: Aksiniya Peycheva
- Description: BioReconstruction (…of a future moment) explores the “inner life” of various objects of cultural, artistic or personal significance. Books, drawings, paintings or textiles, wallpapers from abandoned homes, suitcases and boxes that were once important but were subsequently partially destroyed, discarded or seem to have lost their value for some reason. The project deals with the issue of their destruction.
The first phase of the methodology consists of covering the objects with nutrient agar, used in microbiology. Pouring it onto the surface of the objects allows micro-organisms to develop – the life that grows in the nutrient environment is found (quite literally) within the objects themselves. The natural processes that destroy them (bacteria, fungus, and mold) are being embraced.
During this process the objects are being recontextualized – not only their vision, but their meaning is being changed; they are no longer victims of the time, place, and the person who created them, but are beginning to live new lives as “proud” bearers of their trauma.
In the final phase of the project, the entire process is being stopped, with the objects sealed within a layer of ‘epoxy-like amber’. Through the confluence of microbiology and art, BioReconstruction explores the subject of memory and the ephemerality of time, where the distortion of the outer form and its destruction are seen as complex processes that are not necessarily categorized as finite. They create new logic and give new meanings. How can we fast forward time before we freeze it forever? - References: https://aksiniyapeycheva.com/styled-2/photos-5/