Main Hall of San Stefano Gallery:

April 16 – May 8, 2019.

Opening: April 16 (Tuesday )2019, 6.30 p.m.

This is the first event for the festival, which has the important mission to present artists from distant Brazil. The current exhibition is shown as part of the programme of SOFIA PAPER ART FEST thanks to the Embassy of Brazil in Bulgaria and will be formally opened by H. E. Ana Maria Sampaio Fernandes.

The AMATERAS Foundation is a representative of the Bulgaria - Brazil cultural institute, initiated in cooperation with Brazilian partners from the city of Anapolis, Goias state in 2018. This is the first initiative of the Institute in Bulgaria, and will be followed by an exhibition and presentations in Anapolis and Pirenapolis, Brazil in June 2019.

Short prehistory: The exhibition „Тen artists. Ten visions“ is a joint curator project by Daniela Todorova with Angela Barbour and Eliana Anghinah, whose collaboration started in 2017 and aimes at a cultural exchange between the two countries. In 2017 and 2018 in Sao Paolo and Belo Horizonte in Brazil, two big exhibitions have been shown, and in Bulgaria - two independent projects within SOFIA PAPER ART FEST 2017. The three artists are curators and members of the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists /IAPMA/ and know the global trends in this art form very well. This active beginning predetermined the creation of the Institute with the purpose of long term exchange in all arts. The selected artists, who primarily work in Sao Paolo and Belo Horizonte, are very different in their artistic searches, but are united by the medium-paper. There is a large spectrum of techniques – from objects in hand-made paper to collages, engravings, paintings, monotypes, etc. What is specific for the entire collection is the lively presence of colour, in unison with the bright character of Brazil and its picturesque nature, printed on the sensitivity of the artists. Plot-wise, the works primarily show nature with its flora and fauna, but some of the artists retain the silent but vivid language of abstract art. This is a small sample of the different trends in contemporary Brazilian paper art, which is a very new idea in this vast and intriguing culture, known for its music and performance genres, but hardly known in visual art.

The participating artists are: Ângela Barbour, Catharina Suleiman, Cildo Oliveira, Eliana Anghinah, Hugo Fortes, Jacqueline Aronis, Nori Figueiredo, Patricia Figueiredo, Regina Carmona and Rodrigo Lobo.