Artists

Stankova, Julia

Julia Stankova

Bio

I was born on October 30, 1954, in Bulgaria. After twelve years of working as a mining engineer I quit my job (1990) and dedicated all my time to painting. Fortunately this crucial turn in my personal life coincided with the ending of the totalitarian regime in my country. In communist times I wouldn’t have been allowed to exhibit my artistic interpretations of biblical events. Meanwhile the Theology faculty of Sofia University had opened its doors for women and I was admitted to study there. And so I obtained my second degree in Theology (MT) in 2000.

In my artistic work I gradually developed my own technique of painting on wood based on the pictorial techniques of the Byzantine masters. During the last twenty years I had thirty individual exhibitions in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, the Netherlands and France.

I publish regularly (essays, poetry, theological analyses, articles on art) in Bulgarian literary newspapers and magazines. I am married with two daughters and two grand children. I work and live in Sofia.

My art and my faith

In my childhood I used to contemplate the frescoes on the walls of the small church in my grandparents’ village. The tender embrace of the Mother of God depicted on the altar wall reminded me of my own mother, who I was actually missing. I tried to compensate her absence by recreating the icon of the Virgin and Child with oil on plywood (materials found by chance at the house of my grandparents).

Many years later, when I had almost lost my soul, I started reading the New Testament and layer by layer detected the sense of the biblical events. While I familiarized myself with the teaching of Christ, my own personality was increasingly uncovered. This process was extraordinarily emotional and every piece of enlightenment in my soul made me create a new image. When I was painting the healing of the man born blind, I also started to see; I came back to life together with Lazarus; I took my place in the queue behind the apostles waiting for Christ to wash my feet too… In this way Christ also healed me.

In my work I try to keep my soul emotionally honest before God’s face and to remain honest in this way towards the people I share my paintings with.

 

1. The Healing of the Man with the Unclean Spirit, 40 x 30 cm, mixed media on wood. This miracle of Jesus Christ is not understood by the people around him. They are not ready to accept their healed brother back into their society and it is not clear what is more important to them: that their pigs stay alive or that their brother is healed. Aware of this, the man who had been demon-possessed begs to go with Christ, but Jesus tells him to remain in his village and to tell everybody about the mercy of God. Through this miracle Jesus not only heals the suffering man but also reminds people about one of the most important commandments in the moral law given by God: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.