Exhibition Opening Reception for Noah’s Garden: The Porcelain Worlds of Svetlozar Parmakov
Artist Bio:
Svetlozar Parmakov is recognized around the globe for his exquisite porcelain icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, which draw on millennia-old visual and material traditions from his native Bulgaria but deploy an artistic technique entirely his own. A virtuoso draftsman, he invents the design and engraves it directly onto the surface of his works, without a preliminary drawing, sketch, or plan. He has exhibited in Asia, Europe, and North America, but this is his first time showing his work in New England. He lives and works between the capital, Sofia, and the town of Isperih in northeastern Bulgaria—a region known for the extraordinary ancient Thracian tomb at Sveshtari and the country’s first capitals, Pliska and Preslav, where advanced ceramic workshops flourished in the 9th-10th centuries CE. A graduate of the National Academy of Art in Sofia, Parmakov also holds a PH.D. in Industrial Design from Sofia Technical University. Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, he has studied theology and is an active church chorister. Music is an important part of Parmakov’s creative life – he plays the guitar, composes, and sees parallels between musical ornamentation and the decorative patterning in his porcelain works.
Curator Bio:
Liliana Milkova, the Nolen Curator of Education and Academic Affairs at the Yale University Art Gallery, is an art historian, museum educator, and curator. She has published on and organized exhibitions of contemporary and historic art from Eastern Europe, notably Illuminating Faith in the Russian Old Believer Tradition; The Legacy of Socialist Realism; Laughing Matters: Soviet Propaganda in Khrushchev’s Thaw, 1956-1964; and Dancing on Embers: Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Bulgarian Art. She holds an A.B. in Art History and Old World Archaeology from Brown University and a PH.D. in Modern and Contemporary Art from the University of Pennsylvania.