Nevelin Ivanov (b. 2002, Burgas) is a visual artist who lives and works in Sofia. In his practice, he is primarily focused on installation, with drawing remaining a key point of departure. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design from the National Academy of Art in 2025, and subsequently continued his education in the master’s program in Cultural Studies at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski.
His solo exhibitions include If I Had a Pig, I Would Name It Nevo (2023, Little Bird Place), Nevo’s Bedroom (2024, Little Bird Place and BUNA), You Will Not See…(2025, UniCredit Studio), and I Will Stop Being an Artist If It Snows Indoors (2025, +359 Gallery).
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Emergency Entrance at the Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia, The Past Year at the National Gallery, Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, Before the Mirror at +359 Gallery, Defy the Status Quo at Doza Gallery, Sofia, and at Aether Gallery, The Hague, as well as exhibitions at the Goethe-Institut Bulgarien and other venues.
Ivanov has been nominated twice for the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, in 2024 and 2025. He was also the winner in the Visual Arts category of the Stoyan Kambarev Foundation Award in 2024.
Nevelin Ivanov’s practice is grounded in drawing as a constant point of departure and a primary means of thinking and constructing images. His work explores the processes through which language, imagery, and contemporary culture shape perceptions of the world. Personal experience serves as a point of departure from which broader cultural movements can be traced. Beginning with autobiographical narratives, the works examine how individual experience bears the traces of already internalized ideas, social roles, and regimes of recognition. The focus is on the mechanisms through which these meanings become established and gradually acquire the status of cultural specificity.
