Stefan Stux gallery is pleased to present the New York based Bulgarian artist, Kosyo. The paintings and
sculptures by Kosyo now on display in Stux Gallery’s Project Room explore classic issues such as
mortality and beauty, which are re-invested with contemporary significance through his innovative use of the
modern materials of silicone and polyurethane. In a complex series of explorations of the relationship
between the hand crafted and the machine-made, he paints a coat of specially pigmented silicone inside a
mold of a human skull (originally crafted by the artist as well), creating a postcard-beautiful sunset on the rear
side of the cranium (allowing the front of the face to recede into the darkness of night), and then casts an
additional layer of the resin inside to produce a hollow, but firmly freestanding skull/sculpture, an ingeniously
mediated response to the human condition.
The textured silicone paintings, tacked to the walls like so many re-oriented rubber door mats, are created
through a similar process, this time by painting the pigmented silicone onto various found, machinegenerated
surfaces. Kosyo builds up the image in reverse, from foreground to background, and after the
silicone has set up properly, the painting is peeled away from its surface/mold, revealing the finished work in
its correct orientation to the viewer. The mechanically repetitive patterns on the surface of the works
contradict and extend the normal conception of texture as it is applied to painting, which is most often seen
as a sign of the existential presence of the painter’s hand in the work. Here, the painter’s physical presence is
suppressed, and the resulting objects gain a unique, independent sense of substance, lending them an
autonomous, almost impersonal air.
Oscillating effortlessly between the allegorical and the literal, the handmade and the machine-generated, the
visual and the tactile, Kosyo confounds the readymade categories we normally use to make sense of the
world, driving the viewer to contemplate each of his works from a new perspective, compelling us to
encounter them each time freshly, on their own unique terms.
- Beth E. Wilson