Ivana Stefanova

I am a Bulgarian creative designer / artist based in Sheffield, UK. My desire to create started at a young age and brought me into the world of interior and graphic design. However, visual art such as drawing, painting and photography always stayed a passion of mine and just recently I decided to start showcasing my work on instagram and other platforms. I draw and paint mainly character-driven pieces with particular focus on ambiguous and raw expressions that hint emotions such as desire, hope and melancholy. I intend to represent these feelings but stay away from showing the story of the character. The viewers build the narrative themselves. In this way, the painting or drawing is only the first sentence of the story, the protagonist, the feeling, the question. And I, I am the quiet mediator between a face and the viewer. I subconsciously pack and paint raw feelings and give the viewer the opportunity to feel and wonder. Therefore, the artwork is merely about the character but the feelings it stirs. My work has always been inspired by graphic design’s bold colours and photography’s images - frozen forever but every time you look at them - different. My process involves a lot of layering and/or sculpting mostly rendered faces.