IRENA DRAGOVA

Irena Dragova was born in Burgas, a tourist and industrial town in Bulgaria on the east coast of the Black Sea and, as she says, “every time I go back, the cry of the seagulls and the view of the wheat fields overlooking the sea open my heart”.

It is this hint of poetry and nostalgia grafted onto a stormy history with no quarter given, such as an adolescence under Communist rule that infuses Irena Dragova’s present life, which has been played out since the mid-1990s in Ticino in Switzerland. During this time she has found her professional way, taking a degree in business economics, specialising in marketing, and finally devoting herself to art, and thus realising a dream that had always nestled in her heart. She built her career embarking on thorough training, including courses and internships in Italy and in Switzerland, such as at the International School of Sculpture in Peccia. She initiated and continued to perfect her art on a journey “which finally allowed me to express my inner world at its best”, dedicating herself to sculpture, saying “I love what I do, and I do it with great enthusiasm and passion”.

Irena Dragova’s sculptures are unmistakable, emphatically her own, and marked by confident, signature traits.  There is a play of juxtapositions, a search for ancestry and derivation, and references to past masters, from which emerge her work’s original and individual characteristics. In the mental definition of her works she cleverly succeeds in introducing a strongly and distinctive element. She provides the imprints for her own ideas, through the use of her strong manual and artisanal foundation,

Her figures are bodies in a state of evolution. Becoming expressions of attitudes and above all of states of mind, evidencing all the torments and emotions of the daily struggles of the individual, they at the same time explore new conformations, seeking new ways of expressing themselves, as if in search of subtle balances within which parts of the human figure take over, be that the torso, the back, or the abdomen or other parts.

The awards that she has received are evidence that she is on the right track, but she eagerly continues with her search, delving into art history, experimenting doggedly, with the belief that hope resides in the work.

2021 Creativity Oscar Awarded in Monte Carlo

2021 Vittorio Sgarbi Prize, selection and collective exhibition in Ferrara

2021 Stylistic Excellence Award,

Third place

Collective exhibition in Palermo

2021 Michelangelo International Prize, selection and video exhibition in Rome