Dreams, 31 x 32 inches, dip pen and ink on hot pressed board
The purpose of this drawing was to implement a new language and the way it worked was that it developed into a language as it went. Never knew what a particular detail would look like until the very moment it was done. It was like a play with no script where I was the only audience.
Tiny changes happened along the way, and the world of the drawing changed incrementally.
By the time the drawing was fished - it had evolved into a dream tapestry that would draw you in just like a rabbit hole.
I have kept a diary since I was 13 years old. In these I write and draw sketches of personal and found work. In a way, they are diagrams of a past and a future, usually written in both English and Bulgarian, sometimes a sentence starts in English and ends in Bulgarian, sometimes I write English words in Cyrillic; sometimes I write Bulgarian words using the English alphabet. There are a lot of made up words and lots of drawings.
My last notebook is red.
These series of animations are the red notebook equivalent. In them I use my latest drawings and paintings, they carry the mood and the sense of place and space I currently occupy - Brooklyn, New York.
No digital manipulations for the drawings have been used - they have gone in as they are - I scan them into the computer and animate them. The hands are pen and ink drawings on hot pressed board, a very smooth velvety surface produced by an American paper company. The red background is a Crimson Red Intaglio ink monotype on Fabriano papers ( an Italian paper praised since the Renaissance ).
For these compositions I was inspired by Marcus Fischer's amazing album mip~map/for friends this winter.. and my friends as well.
Painted and animated by Mirena Rhee
Music by marcus fischer / mapmap.ch
I have kept a diary since I was 13 years old. In these I write and draw sketches of personal and found work. In a way, they are diagrams of a past and a future, usually written in both English and Bulgarian, sometimes a sentence starts in English and ends in Bulgarian, sometimes I write English words in Cyrillic; sometimes I write Bulgarian words using the English alphabet. There are a lot of made up words and lots of drawings.
My latest notebook is red.
These series of animations are the red notebook equivalent. In them I use my latest drawings and paintings, they carry the mood and the sense of place and space I currently occupy - Brooklyn, New York.
No digital manipulations for the drawings have been used - they have gone in as they are - I scan them into the computer and animate them. The hands are pen and ink drawings on hot pressed board, a very smooth velvety surface produced by an American paper company. The red background is a Crimson Red Intaglio ink monotype on Fabriano papers ( an Italian paper praised since the Renaissance ).
To score these compositions I used Marcus Fischer's amazing album mip~map/for friends this winter.. Please, support his work: marcus fischer / mapmap.ch and visit his blog.
Winter Diagrams: December ( Brooklyn machine series )
Hand painted ocean in HD ( Brooklyn series ) - animated pen and ink drawings, 2011. Painted, animated and edited by Mirena Rhee. Music by Al Dimeola, John Mclaughlin & Paco Delucia - Azzura.
..I have seen to have survived many centuries and hold their power, on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a lavish Indian painting exhibit and I managed to catch the last day and take notes, photography was not allowed.
The ultimate geek list of pigments used in Indian Painting:
White pigments:
1. Lead White ( basic Lead carbonate )
2. Zinc White ( zinc oxide )
3. Chalk ( calcium carbonate )
Red/Orange:
4. Cinnabar ( Mercury sulfide )
5. Vermillion ( Synthetic Mercuric Sulfide )
6. Lac ( primary colorant Laccaic Acid )
7. Red Lead ( Lead tetroxide/orange red )
8. Realgar ( Arsenic disulfide/bright orange red mineral )
9. Saffron ( Crocetin and Crocin )
Yellow:
10. Opriment ( Arsenic trisulfide/soft yellow )
11. Indian Yellow ( Magnesium euxanthate/ originally from the urine of cows fed mango leaves )
12. Gamboge ( yellowish orange )
Green:
13. Verdigris ( Basic Copper Acetate/dark bluish green pigment )
14. Malachite ( Basic Copper Carbonate )
Mixtures to make green - Indigo and Indian yellow
Blue/Violet:
15. Ultramarine ( Natural Ultramarine is the ground, separated blue particles - lazurite - from the gemstone Lapis Lazuli )
16. Azurite ( basic Copper Carbonate/frequently found adjacent to Malachite )
17. Indigo ( Indigotin )
Earth Pigments:
18. Iron Oxides
Black/Gold/Silver/Tin:
19. Carbon
20. Gold Ink ( Gold particles with gum ), similar with Silver and Tin ink
21. Beetle wings ( to represent Emeralds )
Inks:
22. Carbon inks ( Lamb black )
23. Metallo-gallic ink
24. Indian ink ( naturally )
25. Willow Charcoal
26. Lamp Black ( soot from fat, oil, tar )
27. Ivory Black
Intent sometimes takes years to grow - you have a vision in your head but it may take years for it to become optically evident. In the commercial world intent is focused on a product but in art, luckily, intent grows together with the artist realizing that intent. There is a flow to this process, an easy state.
This is a piece about a queue of vague thoughts, gestures, earlier work and some paintings at the Rubin museum of art in New York. It is also about conversations and acts of confession from other artists. Whenever I draw or work on my computer I mostly watch hands theater, it is an endless act of creation and an act of war.
It is also about how living in Manhattan change me, it is about turning inward and imploding my personal space. It turned my attention to my intimate space, science defines it as 1.5 meters in diameter. A realization that a simple act of peeling apples actually is an extraordinary act on micro-level, where electric storms of electrons introduce ordinary changes in reality. This "hands theater" is in essence a violent act, not in the way of doing harm but an epic battle to make change, to rupture. Hand painted ocean and fruit ( Manhattan series ) - 40 x 10 inches, pen and ink on hot pressed board, 2010
Music by Al Dimeola, John Mclaughlin & Paco Delucia - Azzura.
