Breaks: exhibition by Daniela Oleg Lyahova

Daniela Oleg Lyahova is an artist most famous for her stage design projects. And yet throughout her creative career she also worked in the field of graphics and painting. Most of these works, however, never left her atelier which preserves hundreds of pictures and sketches. An astounding body of creative work has remained unknown to the public. Although it has never been exhibited, it is a natural part of the life and personality of its author for whom painting and stage design were indelibly linked, simultaneously evolving and mutually enhancing.

The exhibition includes a selection of drawings, paintings, as well as a book written and illustrated by the artist. All were created between 1990 and 2006. It is a chance to follow the development of her interests, the directions of her work and the deep study of separate aspects of the image. The observation of nature and the representational motives in some of the works gradually flow into abstract surfaces bearing the reverberations of reality. Elements of the landscape become powerful symbols, a concentration of the spirit of the time. Painting loses its concreteness but becomes infused with emotion and meaning.

Daniela Oleg Lyajova is among the rare Bulgarian artists who work in the field of pure abstraction. Her experimentations with different techniques are an important part of her creative quest. In her paintings she studies the relationship between light and shape. She uses a sophisticated wax technique because of the peculiar refractions of light that wax can bring. With layering, the transfusion of light through the different strata of the material has an even deeper effect.

Daniela Oleg Lyahova (1967 – 2014) studied Stage Design with Prof. Georgi Ivanov at the National Academy of Art, graduating in 1995. Her debut in theatre is the stage design of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanyo (in collaboration with Nikola Toromanov) at the theatre-laboratory ‘Sfumato’.ere she took part in most projects, while also making stage designs fpr the National Theatre, for the theatres in Sliven, Lovech, Dimitrovgrad, etc.

Throughout her career in theatre she has worked with directors like Julia Ognyanova, Galin Stoev, Krikor Azaryan, Mladenova, Ivan Dobchev, Yavor Gardev, etc. Stage designs for “Beans” by Elin Rahnev, “Antigona” after Sophocles, “Forgotten by Heaven” by E. Tomova, “The Black Fleece” (an author’s performance by M. Mladenova and Iv, Dobchev, in collaboration with Ivan Dobchev), “In the Air” by A. Shipenko, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Alyosha” and “The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Ivan” after Dostoevsky, “Life x 3” by Yasmina Reza, Turgenev’s “Month in the Country”, “Seagul” by Chekhov, “Digging Materials”, written and directed by Ivan Stanev after A. Platonov, “Elabuga Station”, written and directed by M. Mladenova, about the life of M, Tsvetaeva, “Astapovo. Tolstoy’s Final Station”, written and directed by Iv. Dobchev, stage design Daniela Lyahova and Ivan Dobchev, “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare, “Julie, Jean and Christine” after Strindberg, “Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare, “Return to Wittenberg” by G. Tenev and Iv. Dobchev, “A Behanding in Spokane” by M. McDonagh, “The Knight of the Holy Spirit” by B. Papazov, “Night Moth” after Piotr Gladilin, etc.

Participations in art exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. Laureate of the IKAR Award 2008 for the stage design of “Julie, Jean and Christine” by A. Strindberg at “Sfumato”, IKAR 2012 for the stage design of “The Knight of the Holy Spirit” by B. Papazov at the National Theatre and for “Return to Wittenberg” by Ivan Dobchev and Georgi Tenev at “Sfumato”. ASKEER 2009 for the costume design of “OOOO – Gogol’s Dream” after “Nevsky Prospect”, “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka”, “Marriage” and “Diary of a Madman” by N. V. Gogol, ASKEER 2011 for Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale” at Sfumato, ASKEER 2013 for the stage design of “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare at the National Theatre, etc.