OUR CELLS

In her exhibition "Our Cells", Nora Ampova shares a more personal story through universal female frames of mind and images. We walk among portraits reminiscent of "The Rebel", "The Dreamer", "The Successful/Powerful Woman", "The Melancholy", "The Timeless Woman" (seen in an antique sculpture, referring to past centuries and the ever-present challenges faced by women in different eras).

These images talk to us about the path of transformation in which the girl matures and gradually begins to perceive herself as a woman. An intimate narrative built through inner states revealing the artist’s feelings and understandings of her own roles in today's society - as a mother, wife, artist, dreamer. Works reminiscent of hidden self-portraits, revealing an awareness of the personal, the intimate, the vulnerable, the power of self-knowledge, self-confidence and the need to constantly search for meaning and direction.

Each painting is a hushed moment in time, radiating silence and contemplation, solitude, the urge to be alone, the need for separation, to slow down and reexamine oneself – despite the fast-paced, often hysterical and aggressive modern world. Female images are presented in their individuality, in a state of reflection and as if in search of an answer to many questions that caused them to look inward. And from looking inward, they communicate looking outward to the other character in the story - Nature. The feminine force of Nature, with its stormy and diverse states, moods, strengths and weaknesses, fragility and resilience. A higher, wise energy, protecting and giving rich messages and intuition about the right direction of movement. The relationship between Woman and Nature is primordial and necessary, soft and accepting, warm and cozy - it is Home.

Nora Ampova searches and experiments, she creates her works through a new perspective at the artistic fabric of the canvases. Increasingly daring contrasts in the materiality of the image, diverse painting approaches, uniting flatness and volume. The growing interest in the liberated disorganization of the image, reaching at times a state of pure abstraction, is very impressive. And all this, executed with imagination and talent, comes to life in harmonious compositions with a more intense presence, where concept, emotion, meaning and artistic reality provoke visual temptation and intellectual delight.

In the words of the artist herself, she engages in a kind of play with the eras of the past and the present, perceptible even in the aesthetics of the clothing of the heroines. Without being specific, it alludes to a journey through time and space in order to highlight once again the persistence with which a woman meets challenges in search of her place and role in society. She also shares that the canvases talk about the psychological adventure of growing as a person. There is some cyclicality. A woman is not a single image, she is dozens. She is constantly in motion. Through challenges, she gets to know her nature. These processes do not end, they are in constant competition and exchange.

The title of the exhibition, "Our Cells", has an ambiguous message. "Cells" as "traps" - restrictions imposed from the outside or, caught in the trap of our personal psychology, silenced inside us. But also our "cells" as the fundamental matter from which we are made, our constituent parts. The central female images in the exhibition recreate decisive moments. They are the starting point for pushing away from the "cells" as forms of limitation, replaced by our capacity to freely re-imagine our personal world in the context of societal obligations and expectations. To be female heroes in our own stories. To follow our innate instinct for strength and independence, listening to the wisdom of (our) Nature.

Nora Ampova (b.1989) is an artist based in Sofia. In 2014 she graduated with a master's degree in painting at the Academy of Arts in Sofia and in 2011 she specialized fine arts at the University of Hertfordshire, Great Britain. Nora has over ten solo exhibitions, as well as participation in numerous group projects in Bulgaria and abroad. Her works are part of the collection of Hugo Voeten Art Center, Herentals, Belgium, as well as other private collections in Bulgaria and abroad. Nora Ampova is the winner of the 2016 UniCredit Bank and Stoyan Kambarev Foundation - Young Artist Award.