YANKO TIHOV & NADIA TSAKOVA
3-30 September 2015
Private View Wednesday 2nd September 6-8pm
Yanko Tihov, Face, oil on linen. Nadia Tsakova, Indian Summer, oil on canvas
This exhibition brings together two exquisite painters, Yanko Tihov & Nadia Tsakova, and includes
portraits and scenes inspired by London city life.
Yanko Tihov was born in Bulgaria in 1977. He graduated in 2001 from the National
Academy of Art and later in the same year moved to London where he still lives and works.
Yanko is known for his fine portraiture and surreal figurative images. He has exhibited at the
Royal Academy of Arts, National Portrait Gallery’s BP Awards, Royal Societies of Portrait
Painters, and Lynn Painters Prize among others.
His work includes a series of ‘Passport Maps’ where each print’s design is determined by the
colours and motifs of each country’s passport. The series has become highly collectible and
his first edition of ‘Contemporary Europe’ sold out. Yanko’s passport map series include
historical elements such as maps showing the British Empire and how Europe has changed
politically through time. These maps are a fascinating reminder of the distinct laws and
jurisdiction which bind our lives and continue to create separation despite an increasingly
globalised world.
This exhibition is a collection of Yanko’s different approaches from fine portraiture,
figurative paintings and drawings to his latest passport series.
Nadia Tsakova attended art college in Bulgaria in 1992 and later attended the National
Academy of Arts in Sofia, gaining an MA in Fine Arts, Printmaking and Graphic Arts.
Following this, she won several national awards and competitions in Bulgaria. After moving
to England she continued to earn recognition, winning prizes for exhibits in London at the
Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the National Print Exhibition. Her work has been featured
at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, RP and ING Discerning Eye.
Nadia is an accomplished figurative painter. She describes herself as being fascinated by the
quality and beauty of light which creates and forms the composition. Her inspiration is often
sourced from the beauty of everyday life in London. She sees herself as an observer and
views London residents through a more romantic lens, imbuing the city with a dreamlike
quality, out of focus figures and soft light. She sees people, not the city, as the subject of her
work, turning what could be lifeless cityscapes into intimate figurative paintings. The buzz of
central London is a recurring theme in her work, giving her the opportunity to explore
figurative form, colour, shadows and reflections.
Yanko and Nadia met at the Art Academy in Sofia. They had two joint exhibitions in 1999
and 2001 as students in Sofia. They are now married and live in London with their young
daughter Alexandra. This is their first exhibition together in London.
And in the upper gallery:
BILL PRYDE
LANDSCAPES AND ORCHIDS
3-30 September 2015
Private View Wednesday 2nd September 6-8pm
Artist’s talk Tuesday 22nd September at 7pm
Suffolk, Suffolk Sunset, Scottish Isle, Suffolk Shore, all monoprints, each 34 x 40cm
Bill Pryde is one of the UK’s most esteemed screenprinters. His new body of work continues to
build upon ideas he began in previous solo shows with interpretations of scenery in Scotland and
Suffolk. His unmistakable style captures this using vibrant colour and dynamic form.
Having recently moved his studio full time to Suffolk, Bill is surrounded daily by the enormous and
ever-changing skies and landscape moods of this county. Walking his dog each day gives him the
opportunity to admire the marshes stretching out towards the sky, and indulge his fascination with
the constant mystery of the sea, “not always active, but often quiet, dark, even contemplative.“
For Bill, Suffolk is reminiscent of his native Scotland, possessing the same quality of light and similar
vegetation, and both these locations Bill feels demand a response. “They are huge and defiant
canvasses, moody, tranquil, yet full of force.”
In this series of works, Bill works frequently in monoprint rather than editions. This allows him to
explore new, more painterly, techniques. Only being able to do things once is something he finds
liberating, and brings a wonderful sense of spontaneity to his work. These works are immediate and
particular responses to the world he sees around him, an expression of his moods and feelings.
These landscapes are joined by a new collection of Orchid prints which are a return to a subject
which Bill first explored over ten years ago. He describes how he felt drawn to their delicate, old
and spindly stalks, and amazement at their sudden production of an outrageous and youthful flurry of
flowers. Having just celebrated his 64th birthday, he is conscious of his own aches and pains but
keeps pushing himself onwards, so feels in this way these Orchid works are in some way
autobiographical.
This is his 6th solo exhibition at Curwen Gallery, having first been part of Curwen Gallery’s ‘Hot off
the Press’ exhibition in 2003 of London MA Printmaking Graduates. Bill’s work has been shown also
in one-man shows at the Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh, the Nehru Centre in London, the Old
Printworks Gallery in Saxmundham, and in Kolkata, India.
He studied at Camberwell College of Arts and spent several years as a keyholder at East London
Printmakers in Hackney. During 2005 he was a resident artist at the Florence Trust, Islington. He
now shares his time between Suffolk and London.
Turquoise Orchid, screenprint, edition of 3, 51 x 34cm