The Good Machines: paintings exhibition by Dimitar Genchev

“When you keep observing something for a while, you start loving it.”

Dimitar Genchev has a hungry eye. He observes the touch of light upon different surfaces – the glaze of ceramic objects, the tenderness of human skin, the rust on various machines, the mold on walls.

He does not copy his surroundings but portrays them in his own way. His pictures are usually large-sized, and their main focus is old factory buildings, the interior of deserted industrial lofts full of scattered machine parts and partially demolished equipment. The rusty metal, the sagging wires, the glass shards and the broken objects lying around are traces of hard labour, of the daily efforts of many people whose presence keeps haunting the place. Dimitar Genchev’s industrial poetics preserves the memory of human purpose and effort that have otherwise fallen into oblivion.

It is interesting to note the methods of the artist who studied at the art academies of Utrecht, Strasbourg and Sofia. A series of technological experiments are used to recreate and apply classical oil painting techniques, creating an impressive illusion of the substance and structure of the objects depicted.

This is Dimitar Genchev’s first major exhibition in Sofia.


The Good Machines Exhibition at the Credo Bonum Gallery is organized with the kind support of the Mondriaan Fund.


Dimitar Genchev was born in 1985 in Plovdiv. He lives and works in Plovdiv and Amsterdam. He graduated from Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 2010 he got an MA in Painting, studying in Prof. Valentin Kolev’s class at the National Academy of Art. He has specialized in Amsterdam and Strasbourg.

Dimitar Genchev has had a number of solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Plovdiv. The artist has won the Bunning Brongers Prize in Painting, the Grand Prize at the National Competition for Young Artists by the Sts Cyril and Methodius International Foundation, the Grand Prize of Société Generale Expressbank, Sofia, etc.