One of Bulgaria's most-successful artists abroad Andrey Lekarski, who has been living in Paris for decades, presents his exhibition at the Nuance Art Gallery in Sofia. All fans of art can see until November 8 some of his paintings and sculptures created since the early 1980's. His works depict beautiful naked bodies, powerful motorbikes and bright landscapes. They are also full of energy. Andrey Lekarski views art-making as constant fun, something he wants to share with the audience. That is why he named his exhibition Back to Sofia.

“I am not among the authors who take things seriously. I even feel sad when I attend official events and listen to speeches of people who think they bear some responsibility. The amusement element is present in most of my works of art - both in sculpture and painting. My works are full of energy, entertaining elements and bright colors which make the audience enjoy the exhibition.”

In his exhibition Andrey Lekarski also shows a bread collection made of bronze

“The smell of freshly-baked bread is something incredible. I selected bread loaves baked in Paris, or in its suburbs. Some bakeries there make loaves that weigh 2 kilograms - the so-called rustic loaves. They somehow attract my attention when I make walks around that area. Once I stopped my car in front of a bakery in a Paris suburb when I saw a huge loaf of bread placed on one of the windows of the bakery-shop. I told myself - I would never miss the chance to buy that bread. I took that loaf and brought it straight to the workshop where I used to make the casts.”

The sculptures which combine fragments of ancient statues and items from the everyday life attract the interest of the visitors of the exhibition. Thus, the Bulgarian artist throws a bridge towards the history and the heritage of the past. What is more difficult: sculpture or paining? “I think that paining is a slow process”, Andrey Lekarski went on to say. “I need at least two to three months to complete each of my paintings, because I usually work with a technique known as Hyperrealism. That is why I need time to paint a given picture, whereas in sculpture time is shorter and things happen in a dynamic manner, but you need more money to do a given project.”

Andrey Lekarski’s paintings and sculptures are displayed in many countries worldwide,

“I do not know what happened to all of my paintings, but most of them are displayed at various auctions” Lekarski goes on to say. “Sometimes I even buy my own works, because their price was not high enough, or because there are no bidders at the auction and later I sell these paintings again.”

Andrey Lekarski's talent was appraised a long time ago in foreign artistic circles. So far, the works of three Bulgarian artists: Hristo Yavashev-Kristo, George Papazoff and Lekarski have part of the collection of the Museum of contemporary Art in Paris. Two of his paintings can be seen at Versailles Palace. People can see at The Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which turned over the years into an open-air sculpture gallery, one of Lekarski's monumental works of art named Builder of the Imaginary. In the beginning of the 1990's during the large-scale exhibition in Nancy, Andrey Lekarski was bestowed with the order of Nancy and became the honorary citizen of that city.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov