(2015-2018)
Twin Peaks
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Baywatch
Star Wars
Serial Portraits (2015 – 2018)
Serial Portraits is a project of limited fanzine editions, unique acrylic drawings and paintings of iconic American portraits from cult TV series. Initially (in 2015) the project started with portraits from the TV series Twin Peaks, Dr. Quinn – Medicine Woman, Baywatch in 3 fanzine editions and their original acrylic drawings were part of a unique sketchbook. In 2016 the Serial Portraits project continued with acrylic drawings and paintings and a subsequent fanzine edition of the cult film series Star Wars. Serial Portraits also includes unique drawings and paintings from TV series such as ER, X files, Cheers and Sex and the city in 2018. These series left a lasting impression on a large part of Bulgarian society. Besides being iconic in their own way they remain in our memories because of the time that they were shown. Namely the 90s, a time when the first western films were shown in post-communist Bulgaria. TV series are a typical, loved, addictive and highly criticized format in modern pop culture. They reproduce and recycle images that become pop icons. TV series even create archetypes. They were a way to rethink the youth’s perception of American pop culture in Bulgaria during those years and formed new patterns of behavior and aesthetic norms.
Serial Portraits was presented for the first time in a 3-part solo show (Twin Peaks, Dr Quinn – Medicine Woman, Baywatch) at Artnewscafe, Plovdiv (2015) and later in the solo show Sereality at SARIEV Contemporary Gallery (2016) curated by Vera Mlechevska. The original drawings, paintings and the fanzine editions were displayed at many group shows such us Deviation at the Ancient Baths Contemporary Art Gallery, Plovdiv (2015); Hip Hip zine fair, Sofia (2015) curated by Desislava Pancheva; Art Start: Young artists to follow in 2017, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia (2017) curated by Stefka Tsaneva, Vessela Nozharova, Daniela Radeva; Exhibition of the BAZA Award for contemporary art nominees – Sofia City Art Gallery; “Baywatch” curated by Nathalie Hoyos and Rainald Schumacher, KVOST, Berlin (2018); “Dias de Romance” curated by Carmen Ferreyra, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2018); Friends with Books: Art Book Fair Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum fur Gegenwart, Berlin (2018).
Serial Portraits fanzine editions (Twin Peaks, Dr. Quinn – Medicine Woman, Baywatch ans Star Wars) are part of Metropolitan museum library collection, New York.
Cheers
X – Files
ER
Sometime in the early 90s Bulgarian television was filled with exciting new images that imported models of sex appeal, symbols of success or simply images promising a different way of life with risky adventures, high speed and glamour. Martina Vacheva recreates images from cinema and television with their scenic presence and framing and attaches to them the highest status of representing personality – that of the portrait. Popular images possess their own charisma and accessories of their time but always refer to a universal archetype recognizable by the viewer. That might be the biological macho or the sexy chic with huge breasts, of the mysterious loner (Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks or Sully of Doctor Quinn – Medicine Woman), of the irrational destructive forces elaborated by the horror genre or the messiah leader, integrated into the national myth. Besides the types from sequels such as Twin Peaks or Baywatch, Martina juxtaposes compositions from cult film scenes, recreated, wilfully or not by the local lifestyle. She opens windows where the film protagonist and the viewer overlap and television formats model the ethos. The film cliche is reproduced on the streets of her home town… The spontaneous frivolity and controlled clumsiness of her painting ridicules the viewer’s empathy with the emotions of these cheesy, hyper sexy or psychotic TV protagonists. She mocks the infantile belief in the power of the TV images and their authenticity or ultimate sexiness mastering the grotesque of her painting style which becomes especially comic in the print versions. Martina’s interest in the expressive force of uncultivated drawing is a subversive reflection on the superficial pursuing of artificial and glossy to perfection quasi-reality of media images, multiplied in the collective imagination in one form or another.
text: Vera Mlechevska
Sex and the City
