Desislava Kostadinova explores divisions in contemporary society

The Sofia Press Gallery and Bookshop in the capital has chosen Desislava Kostadinova’s exhibition You Can Sit with Us to mark the beginning of its third decade. Amid the bright colours of the paintings on the walls, however, an existential question arises - about the fine line between inclusion and assimilation in the name of fitting in.

The exhibition’s title is a playful take on the famous line “You can’t sit with us” from the 2004 film Mean Girls. “The phrase means rejecting someone from a group because they don’t meet certain standards, whether social or fashion-related,” she explains. In contrast to this exclusionary attitude, the artist offers a call for solidarity:

“The individual’s need for social contact is a prerequisite for physical and mental health, although we all need some ‘me time’ every now and then, no matter how hectic our daily lives are,” adds Desislava Kostadinova. “I was interested in exploring people’s tendency to form groups to assert their strength and demonstrate their power, while simultaneously pushing others away.

One way in which people can be rejected is through social media—the so-called ‘cancel culture’—and public condemnation, which can lead to isolation. Another key question is whether introverts choose solitude to protect themselves from ostracism—a problem that has existed since ancient times—and whether rejection is one of the greatest punishments.”

Desislava Kostadinova also highlights the divisions in our society at all levels, which she believes are artificial and imposed by education, the media and politics. She even traces them back to biblical times: “Perhaps we carry a kind of complex stemming from the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which we constantly reenact. In this way, we divide and subjugate ourselves.”

To create her still lifes, compositions and portraits, the artist—who graduated in Painting from the National Academy of Arts under Andrey Daniel—prefers the classical oil technique, which requires slow layering, as well as a small format that invites viewers to come closer and observe the work in detail. Here, one also finds an alternative to the fast-paced, fleeting and fear-driven social environment in which we live.

We stand before several paintings. The first, titled Oh, Heaven, seems to transport us to paradise: a clear blue sky dotted with soft white clouds and a lush green meadow scattered with brightly coloured fruit.

Opposite the gallery entrance, the viewer’s gaze falls on a large window. At the foot of a majestic mountain, beneath a serene blue sky, the uniform rooftops of houses rise, among them a dethroned monument bearing a Soviet soldier’s rifle. “One day, while painting in the studio, I saw the monument as a chess piece, and that’s how the whole composition was born,” says the artist.

A little boy named Martin, sitting on a colourful rag rug made by his grandmother and holding a Rubik’s Cube, takes us back to childhood.

“The truth is, I painted the picture on commission, but I kept it for myself,” admits Desislava Kostadinova. “The child was only three years old, but he seemed to know it all, as you can see in his gaze. He holds his Rubik’s Cube—it contains the answers and solutions to all that lies ahead of him. Meanwhile, the colourful rug symbolises just how rich and varied life is.”

In the final painting, pumpkins of all colours and shapes evoke playful associations.

“I wanted them to interact in a playful, even erotic way,” says the artist. The title Exactly at Midnight refers to the fairy tale Cinderella, in which the carriage turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. From that moment on, the viewer is free to imagine what happened before the clock struck twelve.

With this exhibition, Desislava Kostadinova invites people—here and now, and across the world—to sit down together, to talk, and not to isolate themselves or shut one another out.

Editor: Elena Karkalanova

Posted in English by E. Radkova