"The Creation" cycle by Nikolai Maistorov
I have presided over the opening of several of Nikolai Maistorov's exhibitions over the years and I have spoken and written extensively about his work on many occasions. I consider him an artist of exceptional quality and creative power which is revealed in his body of work and in his peculiar renaissance attributes.
I can hardly describe the reason or even explain to myself why is that I am attracted to the work of this artist, so delicate in his sensibilities and spiritual to the point of being possessed. As a rule he and I should be speaking different languages aesthetically and otherwise, yet I feel him close to my heart both emotionally and in terms of artistic expression.
N.Maistorov has succeeded in constructing a kind of poignantly expressive art that has its own set of principles, an art that has attained depth and an enviable consistency in its expression. It is charged with emotional energy, intellectual ideas and philosophical insights about man and the universe. In his work this artist is thoughtful without being boring, sensitive without being sentimental, deep with philosophical implications without being obvious, spiritual and a man of faith without being dogmatic.
His creative path, as seen in this exhibition, began at some point in the story of the creation of the world and continued with Old Testament and New Testament revelations. In dealing with his inner truths, N.Maistorov has shown himself to be innocent, clean and vulnerable as a child. He belongs to another world of purity and spiritual freedom, but has found himself stuck in a present with no political honesty and redeeming faith. He lives the hard life of an artist with unmasking honesty, relentless aesthetic methods and a total pursuit of his purpose only made possible by his complete immersion in the spiritual world. His belief is that man's destiny is fulfilled when unity with a heavenly universe is achieved.
I have always been impressed by the degree to which this artist was consistent in his efforts to realize his ideas as an author. There is depth and intensity in the way he imposes material shape on his visions in his art. In the presence of the apocalyptic visions of the Bible that his paintings bring to life no words can describe the powerful imagery and the forceful effect of his artistic creation. His immense visions of the world's fate, original sin and the testing of the faith are fraught with suggestive assertions and overpowering energy. The difficult road of spiritual self-discovery has become his artistic mission.
In fact, the group of paintings collected in this exhibition present a challenge even for those who are equipped with the critical apparatus and the necessary measure to appreciate them. Moreover, they function as a commentary of our time with its senseless violence and the meaningless events that surround us. Once we find ourselves inside the artist's world, we have to travel the road to a place where there is chaos and time has stopped, looking for the gates of salvation. The message that comes off his paintings is not so much biblical, it is more than anything else an aesthetic discovery achieved in a closed space where shapes and colors embody the beginning and the end of the world.
N.Maistorov leaves us with the feeling that he is aware of the extra spiritual dimension in ordinary things, he makes masterful use of his knowledge of what the infinite possibilities of shapes, colors and masterful drawing can accomplish by using the biblical imagery of light and darkness, war and peace, the beginning and the end. His art comes from that place where the meaning of life is personally experienced, both in the present and beyond time, in different dimensions that have a higher order of spiritual meaning.
N.Maistorov is a unique phenomenon not only in Bulgarian art but on the international art scene. He appears like the lonely messenger of the Creation who has experienced destruction and rebuilding, sin and repentance, the invigorating effect of important challenges.
With us being caught between foreign artistic criteria and self-sufficient post modernism, the exhibition "The Creation" by N. Maistorov surprised us in the sense that we weren't sufficiently prepared to accept it. It is hard when the artist is still actively working to officially proclaim how exceptional his accomplishments are. The road to understanding the exhibition "The Creation" is hard and unpredictable. Before accepting it or rejecting it we have to experience it as a way, a form of spirituality, a message and as a personal achievement.
Such art is possible not only because one possesses higher aesthetic standard, but because it is an expression of an enlightened and liberated spirit.
Svetlin Roussev
2010
