This exhibition will be on view at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Miller Hall at 406 Prospect Street, New Haven from March 27 - May 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12 - 4 p.m.

Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, contemporary Bulgarian artist Svetlozar Parmakov is deeply familiar with its visual lexicon. Through his virtuosic, free-style draftsmanship he both references and reimagines Orthodox iconography, reclaiming its significance for a modern-day viewer. Parmakov applies his signature, free-style technique of hand-engraving and hand-coloring unglazed porcelain, a fine white ceramic material, to creating religious icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, all rendered with intricate detail and shimmering in muted silvers and golds.

In addition to the titular painting, Noah’s Garden, the exhibition features icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints such as St. George and St. Nicholas, paintings of natural scenes as well as bowls, platters, and vases with elaborate, allover geometric and vegetal patterns. Intimate in scale and meant to be appreciated up close, even handled, the works on view engage the senses, solicit sustained attention, and invite reflection. The delicately outlined and interlocking forms, together with the resplendent hues, recall stained-glass windows, but also a broader cross-cultural history of East-West artistic influences and exchange.

Parmakov’s art transcends time and technology further to draw on his homeland’s rich cultural heritage. His porcelain creations reactivate the magnificent ceramic production that flourished in the 9^th and 10^th centuries CE around the first two Bulgarian capitals of Pliska and Preslav located in the northeastern part of the country, where Parmakov spends his summers and fires his works. Besides their use for architectural ornamentation and luxury tableware, ceramics were utilized in the local icon painting tradition with ceramic icons ranging in size, shape, subject matter, and purpose. Through his choice of material and imagery, Parmakov recovers the splendor and impact of Bulgaria’s medieval decorative ceramic arts which have reached us largely in fragmentary state and gives us ways to encounter them whole again.

Artist’s Statement:

An enchanted world of porcelain, replete with filigree and fantasy. A dynamic, luminous space of plants, animals, and ornamental designs, all permeated by God’s presence. Works of art created through a unique process in a distinctive style, glowing in silver, gold, and platinum.

I would define my style as “decorative realism.” Ornamentation is foundational for my work, and I constantly expand and enrich my repertoire of decorative motifs. I seek to show that the ceramic medium transcends the applied arts, that it exists in the realm of the fine arts and that it can serve a spiritual purpose. I would be happy if the light with which my works are suffused touched the viewers’ souls.

-Svetlozar Parmakov, January 2025

Free and open to the public.

Exhibition curated by Liliana Milkova.

All are welcome to join us for an opening reception for this art exhibit on Wednesday, March 26 at 5 p.m.

We are excited to announce that the ISM will be linking its exhibitions to the Smartify app. The app is available as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, or you can access content through the Smartify webpage at app.smartify.org. The Smartify app will allow you to directly scan artworks that are on display, as well as QR codes that are placed around the exhibition, to receive more information. You will also be able to save your favorite artworks and share them to social media.

Contact: Anesu Nyamupingidza

Photo: Svetlozar Parmakov at work on Noah’s Garden (porcelain, 2025). Photo credit: 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 9^th-10^th 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.