Lyuba Zahova

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Lyuba was born in Shabla – a small sea town on the Bulgarian coast with rich and at times brutal history. Near the lighthouse – which is also the title of her first poetic collection – a world of strong and deeply influential feelings has been emerging during the last decades and has turned the white silence of the empty canvas into a staggering reflection of the vulnerable mind of a highly emotional artist.

The material object is only a provocation for the mind and the soul. Being driven by “the thirst for beauty,” as Lyuba has recently said in an interview for Brian Sherwin, the sea, the cross, the flowers, the rocks, the enamored pair lost in a passionate hug lose their concrete, clearly cut shapes in Lyuba’s vision. They are depicted with a stroke that in its brave gesture and emotional charge reminds of both the Russian masters of the late nineteenth century and the French impressionists. But it is mixed with a clear line of individualism, developed on the mysterious Black Sea coast and during a dramatic historical transition.   

Lyuba Zahova has a reserved place among the most significant non-mainstream artists on the contemporary art landscape in Bulgaria. After more than three decades of active professional artistic career, Lyuba looks back at numerous international exhibitions – both solo events and collaborative efforts. Her paintings are part of private collections in Bulgaria, Germany and others, but are also exhibited by renowned galleries all across Europe (Spain, France, Belgium), Asia, Africa and the USA. She is a member of multiple artistic societies, is a social activist, writer and poet with numerous publications.

Future engagements of Lyuba Zahova include an exhibition in Rumania and a solo art show in Sofia, Bulgaria.


The others about Lyuba:

Brian Sherwin (journalist): “She has concentrated on a painterly technique and is interested in the physicality of paint. She utilizes this skill to create modern compositions.”

Dr. Boris Drenkov (author and scholar): “Lyuba has the stance and the air of the artists who have majorly disappeared from the international stage. She does not silently work in her atelier but is publicly present with her art, self-organized events, writings and above all her strong and determined voice. Her pictures create a Universe of human emotions.”

Plamena Dimitrova (art historian): “Her paintings are honest and provocative to the human senses, because the landscapes with which she continuously describes the being of the human soul are in accord with her own self as this is clearly visible in “The Shablean Coast,” “Shablean Dunes” and “The End of the Steppe.”