BULGARIAN GREDDY ASSA EXHIBIT ON DISPLAY

Society | February 26, 2002, Tuesday // 00:00

The Korea Herald
By Kim Jin

The paintings of highly acclaimed Bulgarian artist Greddy Assa are on display for the first time in Korea at the Gallery Korea in Seoul.

Assa's works are known for their power to allure the viewer away from the strains of modern life and into a fantastic realm of bold colors and even bolder emotions. The exhibition, presenting 34 of Assa's paintings, gives Seoul art-lovers a rare chance to catch a glimpse of another world overflowing with strong moods, through the imagination of Bulgaria's premier fine artist.

Assa's paintings are characterized by a coloristic-expressionist style that conveys deep emotions. Many of his works such as "Mythos," "Lost In Paris" and "Autoportrait On Ski" reveal a daring use of color and seemingly spontaneous, dream-like imagery that draw the viewer into a more free-flowing realm of feeling.

Art critic Sin Hang-seop wrote on the opening of the Assa exhibition that the artistic world created by a romanticist under the sway of dreams brings us a feeling of mental liberation. Greddy Assa is certainly a romanticist of our times, he said. Assa says his greatest influences in the beginning were the expressionists like Chagall and Matisse. "But afterward this influence became purified. My goal is to make this expressionism more poetic and smoother. After all, in the arts, the artist finally has to find himself," he says.

Born in 1954 in the historical Bulgarian city of Pleven, Assa graduated from St. Cyril and Methodius University in 1981. He currently serves as associate professor in the National Academy for Fine Arts in Sofia. Assa's paintings have been displayed in over 20 invitational exhibitions throughout the world, including expositions in Sofia, New York and Paris. His works also have a presence in numerous museums, including the Bulgarian National Gallery, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Jewish Museum in Vienna. "I think every man feels the force of stress in his dynamic life and is in some way afraid of the future," Assa says. "I hope people, through my works, can feel themselves in a good mood and forget the time."

The Assa exhibition opened in style with an event called "One Bulgarian Night in Seoul" where Bulgarian wines and foods were sampled. According to tradition, the world's first grapevines were planted in the region that is now Bulgaria. To this day, wine remains an important aspect of Bulgarian culture. "I am convinced that the exhibition will contribute to deepening the close and cordial relations between Bulgaria and Korea and their peoples," an official of the Bulgarian Embassy said.

The Greddy Assa exhibition is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Bulgarian Embassy. It will run through March 5 at the Gallery Korea, located in the Seoul Finance Center Mall in downtown Seoul. There is no entrance fee.

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