From A to Zombit
The characteristic Zombit style can be described as colorful stencil graffiti portraits of our beloved icons of history spray painted on thematic backgrounds. The mortal stars who carved out their place as immortals in our cultural memory are the biggest source of inspiration for my art. It all derives from my love for pop culture: the movies I watch in the cinema, the music I listen to the whole day, the games I play both retro and new, and the stories we’ve been told about the great ones in the history of humanity. Let me tell you how my art came to be in this blog.
Creativity has been with me my whole life. Like most kids, I loved to draw and I did it with passion. I drew in and on anything, and my school note books contained more drawings than notes. I was definitely a kid who preferred mischief at school with my friends rather than paying attention to teachers. As a matter of fact, teachers had to pay more attention to me and my squad when the school had to be evacuated due to our pranks. It was fun for sure, but school was too serious for me.
That changed with the high school subject CKV (Cultural and Artistic Education). It opened up a whole new world: the world of art. Suddenly, I was able to pay attention to every word the teacher said and I was fascinated. Art history came to life for me. Pop art struck a chord in particular with icons such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons and Roy Lichtenstein. The way they transformed something recognizable into colorful paintings has been a great inspiration. I am eternally grateful to my CKV teacher for introducing me to this world of art. Even more, she invited me to teach art history to her students after my graduation.
Having gained solid knowledge on that which came before, I was able to develop my own style further. Art was life and life was art. As a teen who surrounded herself with pop culture while hanging out with friends at the skatepark, I stumbled upon another style that changed my life: street art. Not the graffiti tags in dirty street corners, but the beautiful, thought provoking and catchy pieces of artists like Banksy. Even though I’m not an avid reader, I devoured books about street art, I watched all the documentaries I could get my hands on, and I went to every exhibition I could. What struck me was that this art was not just for people visiting a museum, but for everyone out there in the open air of the public space. It made me realize that the goal of pop art had been fulfilled and had even evolved into something much bigger - perhaps something Warhol and the likes could never have imagined in their wildest dreams.
One thing that connects all artists that ever lived and ever will be is to experiment and push the envelope. The starting point is always the common and known, but art is to turn it into something unexpectedly novel. When I moved to Bulgaria, I started to cut stencils in order to spray paint anything from vinyls to massive murals. Warhol and Banksy were looking over my shoulder as I developed my artistic skills and style, and I hope they will always be right by my side as I dive deeper into the well of artistic inspiration. And so the art of Zombit comes to be.
