Ahinora 1922

Ivan Milev made Ahinora using what looks like gouache on cardboard, layering shapes to make a face in profile, a tower, and some kind of dark interior. There's a flat, mosaic quality to the shapes and colors, like he’s piecing together a dream with different colored paper. I feel for Milev, trying to figure out how to build a person, or even a world, out of these fractured planes. What's she dreaming about? What’s she looking at? It's like she’s been built from her cultural background – folk art meets modernism. There is also something very naive about it. The color palette is very limited with earth tones contrasting against a pale blue of the tower, creating a sense of otherworldliness. Milev, like many painters, puts it all on the line each time, hoping something new, something true, might emerge. And that’s the conversation painters have, across time and space, isn't it?