Rome

To The Artworks

Painting Exhibition by Zhivka Marinova
April 16 – May 5, 2026
Opening: Thursday, April 16, 2026, 6:30 PM

On April 16, 2026, at 6:30 PM, Largo Gallery presents the solo painting exhibition by Zhivka Marinova, titled “Rome.” After several group exhibitions in the gallery space, this is the artist’s first solo presentation. In the current exhibition, we will enjoy canvases united by the theme of Rome — a city where time is carved into human history. A city built of stone and memory. A city that reveals itself gradually, like a memory emerging from the mind.

Zhivka Marinova’s painting conveys a sense of calm and contemplation. The colors are muted, often monochromatic, dissolving into one another to the point of near-complete fusion. Creamy whites, ashen grays, vanilla yellows, and sky blues unfold in barely perceptible transitions. Warm and cool tones coexist without tension. Contours are rarely definite — and when they appear, they resemble a memory of a line; a trace whose presence does not insist, but merely suggests itself.

In some of the canvases, forms seem to barely emerge from the color — houses, trees, silhouettes of statues appear almost as hints. They are not concrete representations, but rather a sense of focus. The city here is atmosphere — mist, light, breath. In places, the oil paint is applied so delicately that the texture of the canvas shows through the color. Rome appears like an apparition — on the threshold between the seen and the dreamed, as if not fully formed, but just coming into being.

In other works, the gaze lingers — on a bridge, a façade, an arch, or a street detail. The composition becomes denser, the material more substantial, and the form more stable. Yet even then, the surrounding space does not demand attention. It remains open, unfinished — like the background of an experience.

This shifting focus in the artist’s paintings recalls human memory itself — selective, fluid, guided not necessarily by logic, but by feeling. A memory in which some images remain clear, others blur, and still others transform into vivid emotional impressions. Zhivka Marinova turns this inner process into painting. It is precisely within this oscillation between clarity and ambiguity that the image of Rome is formed — the artist’s personal interpretation of the Eternal City.

Interestingly, the human figure is almost absent from the canvases. The spaces are quiet, as if holding their breath between two moments. A silhouette, appearing unexpectedly in some paintings, is barely perceptible — almost ephemeral — without face or substance, existing only as part of the background itself. Thus, the viewer’s gaze remains free — an invitation to contemplation and personal experience of what is seen.

The exhibition “Rome” offers us an impression of the city not necessarily in its literal form, but in its inner experience. The artist invites us to become participants — to look through her eyes at a world where the boundaries between reality and memory dissolve, yet remain permanently imprinted in our minds.

We look forward to welcoming you to the opening of the exhibition in the presence of the artist on April 16, 2026, at 6:30 PM at Largo Gallery, 8 Han Krum St, Varna. More information about Zhivka Marinova can be found in her profile in the “Artists” section of the gallery’s website.

Viktoria Teodosieva
Gallery Intern