Paola Minekov

Sometimes you arrive in a strange city completely by chance and you immediately feel at home… And sometimes you may have lived there all your life, know every block of pavement as the palm of your hand, yet you just can’t shed this uneasy feeling that perhaps you don’t really belong there.

Our relationship with urban spaces is long and complex, an integral part of our evolution as species.  What is it about cities that makes them special?

Is it the architecture, the private memories we share with someone special, the unique light and the smells? When I paint the cities I’ve lived in and visited, I do so from memory and a few rather vague sketches. I’m not looking for realism but for that special feeling which inspires me to return to a place, in my mind, again and again. I let my impressions of the streets, buildings and nature take over and turn into abstractions until the picture I see when I close my eyes is clear and distinctly mine.

Then I transfer it to the canvas.