GHEORGHI FILIN

Sculptor

GHEORGHI FILIN
THE SUSPENDED LIGHTNESS OF FORM

       "As impenetrable as smooth stone, the sea persists"
                                                     Jorge Luis Borges

    A probing debate between artist, form, and matter establishes an immediate connection with the research of Gheorghi Filin, with its features of an infinite narrative, with the alternation of solid and space, in a sort of transcription of its own intimate, hidden identity. Nothing is left to chance nor to a simple rendering of the image, thus confirming the ability of the Italo-Bulgarian sculptor to model the female form whilst intent on revealing the minuscule vibrations drawn out from the depths of the material, be this granite, stone, marble or bronze. Matter that is transformed into representation, retrospective, and a measure of a continuously evolving experience.
    And from the intense interchange of concepts, the sense behind the design emerges, announcing its identity with the fascinating, finely honed sculpture "Mirage of shadows", evoking the poetry of Miryana Basheva: "Like a sign of magic, / a potion for my fever, / like strong rakia, / a white die, already thrown - / with cold, with fire - all my life ».
    In this “liberation of form from the weight of material", in this limpid compositional purity and in the definition of the large sculptures, we can sense the energy of Filin's research bound to a profound relationship with the earth, the sea,  the elements, with the flow of life's seasons and of nature.
    The sculpture, therefore, characterized by the profiles of poets and a sinuous "Venus" in bronze, which belong to a journey that has the expression of "Lennon" or the face of Duke Ellington or the form of "Lectern", created for the church of St. Mark and St. Gregory in Milan.
    A dialogue, therefore, with materials that have always accompanied his story in a close description of the "creations that arrive and rest like the wing of a butterfly on some magical Chinese lake". Filin is the creator of sculpture "sparkling with technique and brilliant creativity, like someone who loves to bring his works to completion as real timeless jewels, in the magical atmosphere of this territory that is waiting to be discovered and explored" (Piergiorgio Balocchi).
    The sculpted form emerges into the light by means of an incisive gesture, capable of fixing a fascinating figural fragment springing from an interior meditation, from the pulsating energy contained in the marble or granite, from the challenge posed by the environment in which the work is placed, bringing it to life.
    And they are extremely light structures, geometric shapes that develop in the atmosphere, sails blown by the wind and projected towards infinity. Surfaces - wrote Nicola Micieli - "regularly attacked, and assaulted not only by external factors, which corrode and change their surfaces, but more by a vital force growing from within, which causes them to levitate physiologically while being transformed into another".
   
     TIME AND HISTORY   
    Trained at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, for many years professor of sculpture at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia and later in Carrara, invited to sculpture exhibitions and symposiums all over the world, Gheorghi Filin is a member of the Association of Piedmontese Art, Turin and of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, London. He has created monumental works in China, Taiwan, the United States, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Turkey, Dubai, Australia, Desenzano (Lake Garda ), and Germany which are elements and testimonies of a language with innovative contemporary cadences.
    In this alternation of locations and relationships with multifaceted cultures and traditions, of poetic and social encounters, there is the essence of a reinterpretation of the image translated into abstract forms, in the radial tension of linked lines of "The web of dreams", positioned in the Minchin desert, and in the balanced rendering of "Cosmic Symphony" which combines matter with an insinuating musicality, reflecting not only the artist's thought but also the exploration of the cosmos of luminous constellations.
    And the light illuminates the surfaces, reveals modulations and projections on the water capturing the singular monumentality of "Sails Steel", "Sunshine", "Creation" in Marina di Carrara,  or the "Monumento dei Carabinieri" in Bergamo and "A burst of energy" (Garden Park Expo, China).
    Filin's sculptures therefore find confirmation in the elegant and absolute stylisation of Alberto Viani and in the curvilinear and smooth forms of Hans Arp, a tension of the whole that goes well beyond representation, establishing a direct connection with the artistic currents of the second half of the twentieth century and the new millennium, with a signature characterised by the expressive synthesis of the granite «Flying on the water» created for the Sculpture Park - Guilin in China.
    A synthesis that characterises an extremely controlled production, articulated within inherent silences, immersed in the light glancing off the material and creating an atmosphere of intimate narrative, since - as Henry Moore said “The idea of the sculpture grows in proportion to its execution”
                                                                       Angelo Mistrangelo
                                                                       Art critic - daily: “La Stampa “, Turin - Italy

A Sculptor of liberated free forms, or forms suspended in the process of being liberated in space.

   Gheorghi Filin studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, where he became a professor of sculpture in the same Academia of Fine Arts for more than fifteen years.

  In 1991, he came to Italy and he has evidently found ideal conditions for learning, perfecting, and deepening his sculptural knowledge.

In reality, it is called Carrara and it's not just any city. It was his first Italian experience and he settled immediately in Italy.

  Try to imagine an intensive open-air sculpture studio, which for centuries has been a pivot point, with ramifications for the diffusion of marble in the entire world.

   A crossroads of artists who today continue to commit their own sculptural fantasy to create works of monumental importance as well as smaller pieces for interiors.

  "It is possible to rely on masters of the art of sculpture who are capable of satisfying every possible demand or requirement."

   This reference to the masters in sculpture brings me to the conclusion that it is of major significance (not only as a presumed professional ethic but also on a level of physical involvement) that the relationship of Filin with the "corpo d'amore" of sculpture is a factor that allows him to follow a method with no outside assistance.

    In other words, to be involved with the sculpture in every phase of the work, from the raw block to the final refinements, arriving close to a quality resembling human skin.

    This process includes the worrying phase of freeing and finding the intended form in the raw stone, other sculptors usually leave this process to the masters in the artisan studios.

   This is not in any way to deny or reduce the well-understood and accepted practice of using artisan assistants, who are actually guided and supervised by the artist to accomplish the main mechanical part of the work.

    All the more so, when the artisans of Carrara are considered to possess world-renowned technical knowledge, competence, and ability of execution, which has given such prestige to the marble artisans and is one of the marvels of the Apuan region.

    It has always been normal practice to utilize the competence of the artisan studio. It needs only the example of Canova, who intervened in person only on the final millimeter of marble, which the assistants, working and following a plaster model, had brought to an almost finished definition of the final form.

    I think that in the creativity of Filin, a decisive role is played by the sympathetic communication with the material selecting the favored marble for its peculiar delicacy, for the grain and the veins of which the physiological mineral consists, in other words, the generative property of the form. In order to sensitively capture it, the sculptural organism closed in the block of marble and already visualized by the artist, must be liberated.

   Working directly into the stone is important because even commencing with a clear enough idea of the configuration which he intends to follow, Filin notes particulars during the working of the marble; gathering and using suggestions, and using the living stone to creatively exploit (even incidentally), often revealing alternative solutions to those previously projected.

   In the completed work, one can perceive the sensitive modulation of the carved structure and, actually, the sculptural image is not a random choice but is always inspired by the drama of nature, which is a permanent laboratory of constant change in condition and form of material. The organic and the inorganic interacting determine the inexhaustible variety of existence.

   Not without significance is the fact that Filin reserves particular attention to water, to which he dedicates serious attention not detached from a poetical sense to the study and to the expressive rendering of the element which best interprets the concept of universal development.
From his point of view, the best reason is that the liquid element allows him to celebrate the creative virtue of excellence which originates and conditions, without doubt, the renewal of life and the inexhaustible source of always new and diverse conformations.

   From here the theme of the wave, or in other words, of a form which grows and sails under tension in space until it reaches the culmination of its dynamic arc and the liquid mass breaks and foams imprinting with its own collapse, the energy of the successive wave. The sculpture which represents waves; a change in the state of integrity, from fullness to space, from smooth to granular, from solid to liquid, constitutes the central theme in recent times of the work of Filin.

    From the small sculptures, which form the focus the larger ones; frequently realized on a monumental scale for public places in many countries around the world, (on commission from public institutions or private clients, others, on the occasion of international symposiums) there is always excited interest and surprise for the impressive mass of the work, once confronted with the quality of the results.

    I wish to draw your attention to the leading role of the wave in the creative state of mind of Filin which implies the theme of life, previously treated in earlier works clearly biological such as nuclei or fertile ovaries in which incubation and the growth of the organism are destined to assume completion and autonomy of the various living species.

   Obviously, this included man, who rarely appears in actual bodily form in the sculpture of Filin. Perhaps it is caught in the act of liberation, like a chrysalis freeing itself from the casing which constrains it. Presented as a mental "space" referring to the solid geometric forms, prisms, pyramids, divided cubes disposed in balance, one on top of another, to allow surfaces to slide and to be regularly attacked and assaulted not only by external factors, which corrode and change their surfaces, but more by a vital force growing from within which makes it levitate physiologically while it is transformed into another.

    Observations made up to now are only a beginning of reflections on the sculpture of Filin and quite insufficient in rendering an idea of his supposed preconceptions and his formal and stylistic quality. Such a study would call for larger space not possible in the space of a short article.

    I wish nevertheless to conclude with a further note which, it seems to me, is not only pertinent from the point of view of language, but which has been confirmed in the long journey made by the Artist. The significance of the poetic level as well as the suggestive impression made on the observer.

   Returning to the idea of lightness which the work suggests in more and more subtle and evocative ways, by virtue of the progressive reduction of mass and volume. The sculptor divides to liberate the forms from the weight of the material, and preserves the sense of its organic connection to the earth, as a fruit of the earth it can live and breathe in purity.

Professor  Nicola Micieli

ITALIA 2001 Prize For Sculpture.
Strength and Purity in the work of  GHEORGHI FILIN.

And suddenly it's Art; an Art made from a profound observation of everything captivating, symbolic, and vital, capable of motivating this Artist.

   A sculptor intent on transforming a piece of stone into a "living being" on which he engraves an essence, which eternally manifests the bursting energy which gave its origin.

     The important point is that "bursting energy" which, in the work of the artist, is not only an expression of a conception but is also a reflex of the constant challenge, the sculptor engages in with the material.

     We are thinking of that magic edging or the opening of volumes in a foaming crest which becomes the unmistakeable cipher of many of his works.

     "Mermaid" (Sirena) is a work which expresses emblematically this talent and which appears as a recurring symbol in all his sculpture - joining abstract impression with the figurative and majestic surface with detail of extreme delicacy.

 Roberta Fiorini

Art critic

Gheorghi   FILIN

For over thirty years a sculptor resident in various parts of the World.

    Born in 1953 in Bulgaria, for over thirty years a sculptor resident in various parts of the world but at home in Carrara, between the marble mountains and the sea, Gheorghi  Filin has produced, conceived, designed, and sculpted an impressive series of monumental works in which technical skill is closely bound up with poetry.      In addition to " carving poetry from marble by the force of art ", as an ancient tombstone in the center of Carrara states, Filin loves to travel and sculpt his images of dreams and matter in places where it would seem really easy to dream.

   A traveler arriving in Dubai or the Emirates or in certain parts of China ( for example Shanghai, Beijing, Guilin ), suddenly finds himself before a masterpiece by this artist. He is often shy and elusive, one who shuns fashionable occasions, but works steadily away in studios in Carrara.

   Gheorghi  Filin is a man tall and stern yet ready to show himself a cheerful and romantic companion of nights of songs and discussions about art, but always with the thought of one or other of his creations which comes and alights like a butterfly wing on some magical Chinese lake. 

   Filin represents that tradition closely, sparkling with technique and brilliant creativity, as one who loves to bring his works to completion like true timeless jewels, in the magical atmosphere of this territory that waits to be discovered and explored.

                                Professor  Piergiorgio  Balocchi

                               Head of the department  of sculpture the

                                Academy of Fine Arts Carrara - Italy

Filin's  Sculptural Art

   When I encountered Filin here in "our" Carrara I often admired his complex and delicate sculptures with particulars cut out of the hard marble through elegant chiselling to arrive at a work of purity and absolute lyricism.

    When one observes the work of Filin, endeavor to look below the surface, not to accept your first impression, but to understand the subtle texture and the delicacy of the refined technique. A technique used sparingly and with great professionalism and control, this is one of the secrets of sculpture. "Understand fully to realize with less", in other words, try to enter into the intimate world of the creative fantasy of Filin, which roams freely towards vast horizons and embraces many cultures, confronting as a protagonist, themes of mankind and ideas of the sculpture in the 20th century.

                                   Professor Piergiorgio Balocchi

      head of the department of sculpture the 

Academy of Fine Arts - Carrara - Italy

 Sculptural works by Filin - strong delicate and impressive, true artistic creations.

   Filin shows that talent is not only a gift-the result of training and education but is also a distinctive character.

His creative life is notable for a mental insight, a delicate and elegant sensitivity, and a continuous and unending search for something new.

    Even today, I continue to see in Filin, a sculptor who stubbornly believes in the permanent values of sculptural and stylistic elements and when taking into consideration many modern categories is capable of reaching heights and results which are full of forceful artistic content.

   Decisive, delicate, and impressive sculptural works which transmit the feeling of eternity and which penetrate the soul and remain as a lasting echo in the mind; they are genuine artistic creations.

Professor  Velichko Minekov
 Director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria
 

1998 Creativity Award.
Gheorghi Filin: Emotion of Shape (from an art review)

The artistic creativity of the Bulgarian artist, Gheorghi Filin, bursts into a magnificent composition, which has an immediate power of expression. The equilibrium of his works, the spaces split by light, the contrasts generated by the hardness of the materials used are subdued by the energy of his spirit.......

And his art becomes poetry wrapping all his artistic production in the mystery of form shaped, caressed and penetrated......... The artistic searches, explored to the point of the exaltation of the subject, enraptured by his own sub-consciousness, working marble with frenzied determination; his expression is a need, which only settles on completion of his work.

Filin's sculptures transmit no hesitation, but rather a deep awareness of his love for sculpting which embraces the artist in the climax of his creation.

                                    Maria Rosaria Belgiovine -

                               Critic, Director of Artexpo Gallery - Italy

Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale 2001.
Sculpture by Gheorghi FILIN "Thinking evolution"

"A sequence of cresting waves and dashing spray is the sculpture I get from this work, which manifests a sense of dynamism and tension."

Sasano Takaaki 
Director, Museum of Contemporary Art - Sapporo - Japan
Comment on the Toyamura Int'l Sculpture Biennale 2001
 

The Door of the Soul.
Sacred and sculpture (excerpt from an art review)

In Filin's sculptures substance always rises into shapes which signal the birth of life, in a clever balance between geometrical rigour and creativity.

                                             Giuseppe Cordoni

Professor  Art critic   

Filin in China,

Filin's  Artistic Sculpture

    The famous sculptor Gheorghi Filin has been nourished by Italian culture since he was a young student, so much so that his personality naturally exudes a unique artistic atmosphere in Italian style.    

    Although  Filin is a foreigner, he loves and appreciates China.   Over the years, his art has shown his unique and recognizable style in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhu, Qingdao, Tangshan, Nanjing, Fuzhou, Haining, Hui'An, Guilin, Urumqi, Tonglin, Taizhou, Changsha winning numerous and important artistic awards.   It can be said that China is its second home because here there is a remarkable display of his artistic life and there is a passion for his artistic emotions!

   Filin's sculpture has a common vocabulary and the visual information transmitted by his works is understandable.   Although  Filin's works are abstract, they convey unique and graceful sensations to people.  They show the theme of man, nature, and life.   His abstract sculpture is a synthesis and a high-level refinement of the essence of things, it is an abstract art with images that allows the public to share its artistic emotion and its contents.  

    For example, the sculpture "  Mermaid "  develops with three sails that follow one another and extend into space.  The sails gradually become a " Mermaid "  in the development of the shape and so a poetic and dreamlike character is realized. 

    Another example is the creation of a work made of white marble " Tide wonders ", which symbolizes the freedom of ocean waters in their evolution.   Filin's art always has an indissoluble bond with water. He has learned the true meaning of life and the fascinating ever-changing power of water.  This type of analysis constantly stimulates his artistic spirituality, which allows him to, transform inspiration into art, elaborating it in sculpture and transforming it into the most expressive artistic language of his communication with China and the World.

                                         by Song  Weiguang

                                         Art critic, publisher of the

                                         Chinese  "Sculpture magazine"

                                         Beijing - China