Boré Ivanoff : Intuitive Improvisation
Boré Ivanoff, a Surrealist oil painter, draws his inspiration from his home city, Paris. Ivanoff lays the foundation of his works with architectural scenes from the City of LIghts, then fabricates a distorted version of reality through the use of reflections.
How did your creative journey begin?
First, I would like to warmly thank you for this opportunity to express myself in the page of your website! I am truly flattered and honored to answer your questions. In fact, when I was a child, being an artist was not my big dream. I didn't even go to art school. When my parents found the right connections and did some maneuvering behind the scenes to get me into the fine arts school in Kazanlak, the city where I grew up, I boycotted everything and didn't go to exams, but I think it was a good thing, because from my point of view today, I am convinced that the very idea and notion of art school is simply an amusing oxymoron. Back in the day, my very serious plan was to become a sailor... a sort of professional traveler, and to be more precise, I wanted to become a yacht skipper. I dreamed of sailing around the world with my own small sailboat. But, because that, and all other things I tried later had not worked, the only option left, was to try to be an artist!!! Anyway, since I was 5-6 years old, it was always a great deal of fun for me to draw and even paint, just for pleasure, of course. At some point, around the age of 17, I even had sold some of my artworks. My first personal exhibition took place at the age of 18 in the Municipal Exhibition Hall of the city of Kazanlak with at least 2 artworks sold, one of them had been acquired by the director of the place. However, at this time, art has never been considered as a serious lifetime occupation for me. Just some fun... until I arrived in Paris in 1995 for the first time in my life. Then I brought some 20 artworks, oil on canvas or oil on plywood panel and I discovered that the proverb, "Fortuna favors the bold" is somehow right. I almost immediately found an art gallery ready to show some of my paintings. This first gallery was located in Le Marais district, at Rue Vieille du Temple, just behind the Picasso Museum. But the story didn't finish there. A few weeks later, I had found a second gallery interested in my works. The gallery "Emile Vincent" was located at the Quai de la Tournelle, on the Left Bank of the Seine, right next to the famous restaurant, La Tour d'Argent. Mr. Beaumont, the gallery owner, after consulting with a professional art expert, suggested that we should organize a solo exhibition of my paintings. So, it happened right in the middle of the artistic season in Paris, in mid-October, during the period of la FIAC when everyone who is somebody in the art world comes to Paris. Even for me, it was quite surprising and kind of sensational success. Of the 20 paintings on the walls, we only sold 9 during the opening night. Certainly, it was a very different time from today, but right then I understood that art is the right and only interesting path for me!
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
Since 2012, I have almost exclusively painted portraits of Paris. The City of Lights is a main source of inspiration for my image production. Seeking to intrigue and surprise my audience, I strive to transcribe an offbeat, unexpected, enigmatic, Paris. What is specific to these Parisian portraits and makes them quite unique, is that I use the distortion of reality through reflections on urban glass and water surfaces as a tool to recontextualize this urban reality. This is why my paintings no longer cling to the conventional and irritating representation of easily recognizable motifs, but emancipate in a new sophisticated, ambiguous fiction, making the artwork timeless via the fragments, recontextualized and transformed by the constantly changing angularity into a hallucinatory image. That I call, Psychotic Realism. When I happen to create my collages in the spirit of Dada, then I find my inspiration in my naturally rebellious, defiant, and extremely ironical mindset. I am inspired or rather provoked by events and things that are happening constantly around the world. Then I draw my collage material by appropriating printed images from popular and widely available sources such as art magazines, catalogs, newspapers, illustrated magazines, brochures advertising, exhibition maps and leaflets, various packaging, wallpaper and textile materials, etc. which I place by juxtaposition on the surface of the main support: classic canvas frame, cardboard, plywood, wooden or metal panel, in combination with the application of oil paints on and around them. This chromatic intervention becomes a kind of graffiti - an act of intuitive improvisation, sabotage against the established rules and cannons, decorative vandalism, a triumph of the irony and the absurd... And it becomes a Kind of Dada!!!
How has your work evolved over the last few years?
The ever going change or rather the natural development, or the artist's evolution, is a constant process with every artist, I think. Martin Kippenberger, the great German artist who is one of my role models, was firmly convinced that "In an art school you could only learn techniques, but that this was not art. Everything must emerge from life experience. Art is about developing.” So, in my case every new painting is like I am starting to paint for the first time and through the creative process I am like I re-discover myself and my artistic power, abilities, imagination. So, I suppose that each one of my artworks is a part and a mirror of this evolutionary process of re-birth and re-discovering of myself and my art at the same time. That is the eternal developing based on life experience. Of course, with time, especially since 2016, my artworks became much more sophisticated, maniacal, hypnotic, psychotic and "impossible" in some way, but I am quite happy with this, as longe as I am still so addicted to fabricate them, and I am seeing every day that there are some people that desire to have them as a part of their lives.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
Well, here we have not a big mystery. Usually, I am living in the same place where I am fabricating my images. Life is Art, and Art is Life in my case. So, my day in front of my easel never has a specific timetable or chronological boundaries. Often, I just wake up by 2-3 o'clock in the night, and I am grabbing the brushes and attacking the surface of my ongoing artwork. In more normal days, I am starting around 9 o’clock in the morning, then small lunch break for an hour at the midday, then again from 1 to 5 o’clock, in the afternoon some more fun in front of the easel. Always with headphones, listening music and more and more often some podcasts on the Internet… another part of the ritual is the cigarette in my left hand ( yeah, I know that smoking kills, but who wants to live forever?)... Then by the evening often I go out to visit some art galleries, grab a drink with some friends, or just to be out and feel the pulse of Paris. And then starts the night séance sometimes around 10 p.m. sometimes in the middle of the night for another few hours, but what is essential that I understood these latest years is that for me the artwork itself is less important than the process of its fabrication. Something in the sort of, "The Quest and the Grail" where the Quest is the thing that counts, not the Grail! As I already said above, living and creating in Paris is an inestimable advantage! I really feel at home here and nowhere else in the world! It is my best and most precious life, art university and my reason for being. For me, Paris is the kind of place that offers the right combination of inspiration, pain, love and suffering, to stimulate me to create endlessly fascinating works of art. In my paintings, the magic of Paris and the magic of art infect each other in a quasi erotic way.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
I am always surprised how significant the impact is on my personality self-development and especially on my artistic process are the art books, the writings and the interviews with other artists, their art works that I am constantly seeing in museums, gallery exhibitions or Art Fairs here in Paris and all around in Europe. Especially I am sensible of the art and the influence of artists like Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Neo Rauch, Anselm Kiefer, Daniel Richter, Mathias Wescher, David Schnell, Tilo Baumgärtel, Corinne Wasmuth, Francis Bacon, Justin Mortimer, Jenny Saville, Jonathan Yeo, Cecily Brown, Adrian Ghenie, Alin Bozbiciu, Wilhelm Sansal, Robert Raushenberg, David Salle, Bo Bartlet, Don Eddy, Terry Rodgers, the French ones like François Bard, Marcos Carrasquer and some others of course. Certainly, living in Paris has its priceless advantages. Here we can see and feel so much great art and meet so many great artists, which is a colossal inspiration and detonator for any serious artist, art professionals and any art enthusiast.
How has social media impacted your work? Certainly, social media is playing a huge role in my artistic journey. It helps a lot for communication, for discovery of other artists or exhibition opportunities, to make more visible my art. I have found some very important contacts, even some collectors of my artworks, via the social media. Thanks to the social media, I am communicating with you right now and with your readers in consequence. So, I can say that social media is vital for art and artists today!
How has your time in Paris influenced your work? As I already said above, living and creating in Paris is an inestimable advantage! I really feel at home here and nowhere else in the world! It is my best and most precious life, art university and my reason for being. For me, Paris is the kind of place that offers the right combination of inspiration, pain, love and suffering, to stimulate me to create endlessly fascinating works of art. In my paintings, the magic of Paris and the magic of art infect each other in a quasierotic way.
Instagram: @boreivanoff_artiste
Website: https://www.boreivanoff.fr/