Paola Minekov acknowledges the importance of networking in her career.
Talented artist and multimedia designer Paola Minekov has lived in London since 2008 and loves the capital's vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The city's contrast of the historic with the ultra modern energises and inspires her work.
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Gaslight London, Acrylic on Panel[/caption]
Paola also draws on her artistic heritage from her native Bulgaria, where her family still live. Her father and mentor is the well known sculptor Ivan Minekov. Paola fuses Bulgarian stylistics and artistic trends, which she studied in Sofia, with the contemporary London art scene and the results are stunning.
'I cannot emphasise enough the important role that networking has played in my career', said Paola. 'Each time I moved to a different country - I lived in Israel and The Netherlands before coming to the UK - I built a life anew. I did this by being open to making connections and meeting new people. Then when I moved to London and started to network formally, my career really took off!'
As well as creating opportunities to meet exciting people, networking has opened the doors to major artistic projects. Paola exhibited in the first ever Faberge Egg Hunt, decorated the sponsor's elephant for the Intu Elephant Parade National Tour, and led the creation of a student community mosaic mural at London's Institute of Education.
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Twiggie on Tour, intu Elephant Parade, Faberge Big Egg Hunt, Centenary Mosaic community project at IOE London[/caption]
'I am really enthusiastic about the power of networking and am confident that IBA can help Bulgarian businesses make a bigger impact on a broader canvas,' said Paola.
Paola hopes IBA.Bulgaria will also help young people nurture their personal and professional development by offering them an easy way of connecting with the right people, in any industry, who could help them at the beginning of their careers.
One of Paola's personal ambitions is to promote Bulgarian art at international level. She says, 'I am confident that IBA will be brilliant at helping achieve this goal!'
[caption id="attachment_345" align="aligncenter" width="1600"]
Plovdiv, Acrylic on Paper[/caption]
Talented artist and multimedia designer Paola Minekov has lived in London since 2008 and loves the capital's vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The city's contrast of the historic with the ultra modern energises and inspires her work.
[caption id="attachment_337" align="aligncenter" width="1600"]
Gaslight London, Acrylic on Panel[/caption]Paola also draws on her artistic heritage from her native Bulgaria, where her family still live. Her father and mentor is the well known sculptor Ivan Minekov. Paola fuses Bulgarian stylistics and artistic trends, which she studied in Sofia, with the contemporary London art scene and the results are stunning.
'I cannot emphasise enough the important role that networking has played in my career', said Paola. 'Each time I moved to a different country - I lived in Israel and The Netherlands before coming to the UK - I built a life anew. I did this by being open to making connections and meeting new people. Then when I moved to London and started to network formally, my career really took off!'
As well as creating opportunities to meet exciting people, networking has opened the doors to major artistic projects. Paola exhibited in the first ever Faberge Egg Hunt, decorated the sponsor's elephant for the Intu Elephant Parade National Tour, and led the creation of a student community mosaic mural at London's Institute of Education.
[caption id="attachment_342" align="aligncenter" width="1800"]
Twiggie on Tour, intu Elephant Parade, Faberge Big Egg Hunt, Centenary Mosaic community project at IOE London[/caption]'I am really enthusiastic about the power of networking and am confident that IBA can help Bulgarian businesses make a bigger impact on a broader canvas,' said Paola.
Paola hopes IBA.Bulgaria will also help young people nurture their personal and professional development by offering them an easy way of connecting with the right people, in any industry, who could help them at the beginning of their careers.
One of Paola's personal ambitions is to promote Bulgarian art at international level. She says, 'I am confident that IBA will be brilliant at helping achieve this goal!'
[caption id="attachment_345" align="aligncenter" width="1600"]
Plovdiv, Acrylic on Paper[/caption]View Paola's portfolio at paola.art
Picture Credits: Paola painting Twiggie: © Kristina Kashtanova | Twiggie on Tour: © intu | Colourful World, Faberge Big Egg Hunt: © Michael Murphy | IOE Community Project: © Suzanne Mitchell
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Photography - Ekaterina Georgieva -
Today we’re wishing you a happy spring with this uplifting collection of images by Ekaterina Georgieva, a Bulgarian photographer who has lived in Japan for the last 12 years.
Here’s what she told us about the symbolism of the exquisite displays of cherry blossoms known as sakura.
‘The Japanese view the blossoming of the Sakura as a new beginning, which they eagerly await. On the other hand, they find their fragility and impertinence enchanting and believe it teaches about the transient nature of life. A graceful and ever so slightly wistful reminder to live in the moment’
Discover more of Ekaterina's beautiful images here.
Author - Elisaveta Belobradova -
Image - Malika Sqalli -
Today is not the day of the mother, nor is it the day of hyacinth. It's so much better than that. Today we celebrate the fact that there are societies in which women have equal rights with men.
I’m lucky to live in such a society, regardless of any of its other caveats.
Freedom, Sancho ... It’s best thing. The freedom to learn, to graduate from university, to work until you’re faint, while your husband looks after the kids. The freedom to drive a car (as well as I can, in my case), to get drunk in a bar or to become a porn star if you will, because your body is your own. The freedom not to get married or not to have children, the freedom to choose. To chose… To be literate, to defend oneself in a court of justice or to be a judge, or an entrepreneur; to go make-up free and to be able to say it when you get your period; to give birth while your husband holds your hand. To fall in love with another woman, to have an abortion, to earn a living or to drive a Mercedes because you’ve got a rich lover; to chose to be a surgeon or an archaeologist …
Freedom is not to like the 8 March, because you remember communism, the hyacinths and how society rip your mother apart with work, while at home the family’s patriarch carelessly threw his socks on the floor that she relentlessly cleaned.
If you are celebrating, pour yourselves a glass of wine to mark being normal people, with rights and with obligations. Because only a 1000 kilometres away from here things are quite different.
Credits:
Text by Elisaveta Belobradova, founder of Maiko Mila, a Bulgarian parenting website
Artwork by Malika Sqalli, Optimism Series
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| Impressions of Barcelona, Oil on Canvas, Paola Minekov |
Author and artist - Paola Minekov -
Sometimes you arrive in a strange city completely by chance and you immediately feel at home… And sometimes you may have lived there all your life, know every block of pavement as the palm of your hand, and yet you just can’t shed this uneasy feeling that perhaps you don’t really belong there.
Our relationship with urban spaces is long and complex, an integral part of our evolution as species. What defines the character of a city? Is it the architecture, the private memories we share with someone special, the unique light, the smells?
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| Amsterdam, Acrylic on Canvas, Paola Minekov |
When I paint the cities I’ve lived in and visited, I do so from memory and a few rather vague sketches. I’m not looking for realism but for that spark which inspires me to return to a place, in my mind, again and again. I let my impressions of the streets, buildings and nature take over and turn into abstractions until the picture I see when I close my eyes is clear and distinctly mine.
Then I transfer it to the canvas.
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| Gaslight London, Acrylic on Panel |
Gaslight London, the paining above, is a contemporary take on the classic view of the city’s historical centre. All great cities are built near a river or the sea and London, with its impressive bridges, makes no exception.
As an artist, I find the reflections of light in water a fascinating extension of our physical world, an alternative reality I can spend hours exploring in my art.
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