With glowingly warm hues and an empyrean luminosity of paint, Vesselin Kourtev creates abstract spaces of rich color that billow and swell like the amassment of twilight-tinged cloud formations. Out of these lambent nebulae materialize ethereal human figures – like ghosts or gods, they inhabit a light-infused landscape as portents in a dream. Working in oil on canvas, Kourtev exploits the transparency of the medium to engender the illusion of an inner effulgence in each work. Sensual in color and vaporously sinuous in form, Kourtev’s paintings insinuate the mystical and the portentous, dreams and meditations. Born in Nikolaevo, Bulgaria, Vesselin Kourtev studied art in Kazanluk and at the University of Veliko Turnovo. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Bulgaria, Malta, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the U.S. Kourtev moved to New Jersey in 2002, where he currently lives and devotes his time to painting.
Agora Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001