Photo by Kameliya Atanasova (Sofia Photo Agency)
I'll tell you a story, and believe me its true, of Plamen Kapitanski, one of the most successful Bulgarian painters. He lived for several years in London, staging meanwhile a dozen of exhibitions in Europe and worldwide. But then he came back to Bulgaria. When I met him the first logical question was "Why? Why did you return?""Lozenets*," he said.
By Lora Petrova
Born in 1964, this 43-year-old man decided to make a difference in his home Sofia city and when a friend of his together with his wife opened a small cosy wine bar, they invited him to come and add some extra taste with his paintings. The spell worked and the three of them created a gathering point of the magic of art and wine in one. Plamen has chosen the newly opened wine bar Trovatore della vita (which means troubadour of life in Italian) as a place to unite all people who enjoy highest quality wines and higher than highest quality of fine art.
Starting as an average artist, Plamen grew up to be the one whose dazzling, colourful and magic paintings became ownership of the Queen of England, the late John Paul II, the vice chairman of the parliament of the Netherlands and an unnamed German, who demanded his name to be kept secret because his private art collection is too big and too precious.
Elizabeth II got her Kapitanski painting after he himself had a dinner with the man who "rules" the castle. The man told him how they purchase an ancient spear and the Queen was asked to pay tax for it. So Plamen decided to make her a gift and save her from taxes.
I got to know that he also gifted three of his unusual icons to the Holy Trinity Church, which is the oldest Christian temple in the country. At first sight his icons are scary, some of them dark and surely none of them was painted according to the Christian canon of making icons. When I asked him why, he only told me that all known miraculous icons do not follow the canon. And indeed, people who visited this almost inaccessible and sacred place say Plamen's icon "Madonna" makes miracles.
"Why did you start painting icons," I asked at some point. "I never thought I would make icons in this life, but it became indispensable at some point. You know, what you happen to fear the most... it just hits you in the face sooner or later," he said.
At the end of our conversation he told me about all the Italian wines that the place offers and it was inevitable to ask whether despite all of them do they have some Lozenets district ones. He laughed. And left me and the photographer enjoy the colourful calmness of the place.
*Lozenets is a picturesque and very romantic Sofia district.
Send to Kindle
