on canvas

In his predominantly large-format works on canvas, the painter and pianist Nikola Dimitrov translates musical compositions into his own pictorial language. The coloured lines and grid structures created spontaneously in the painterly process develop to reflect characteristics of the respective musical composition.

Recurring rows of strokes with horizontal, vertical and diagonal superimpositions give rise to a wealth of structures and patterns. These endow the pictures with an internal order and enable melodies, rhythms, meters, rests, syncopation and polyphony to resonate. Particularly the artist’s black-white-grey works exhibit his preference for the rhythmic aspects of the respective composition. By contrast, the works with coloured layers of line patterns emphasize gesture, sound and emotionality. The pictures not only resonate with well-known compositions, but also with the artist’s own sounds and melodies. Thus, the works can be regarded as an interplay of musical and painterly inspiration.