Soft

Ina Trifonova

09-16.09.2019

Curator  Martina Stefanova

Ina Trifonova’s project ‘Soft’ is an original feminine look at contemporary consumer society in which like a reflex of the working and professional environment we set ourselves barriers under the pressure of social criteria and expectations, follow the clichéd understanding of successful life and personal growth. A deficit of identities is created in the ‘global village’ and here comes the ‘Monochromes’ series of canvases painted on satin which inspired Ina for this exposition. Similarly to monocolours, we float freely in our unstable monostructure comprised of a single colour in search of the completeness of our authentic identity. As another saving solution to the unicoloured appears  the series of objects in boxes ‘Saving childhood’,  which raises the subject of childhood, play, naivety  and the depth of colors we have forgotten for a long time in our newly built comfort zone and the hurried sugary success in life of contemporary man.

In this contemporary environment as a way of survival regardless of sex and social status we enclose ourselves in capsules of comfort and entertainment on a physical level turning our back on ourselves, our desires and the spiritual ( the works of foam in boxes’Sweet & Soft Boxes’). We are working more and more to build the barrier wall to our real ego placing comfort on a pedestal as the new value of the present day of which we are being constantly reminded by the surrounding world. More and more comforts, glowing signs and bright objects, necessary or unnecessary details to make us materially prosperous and remind us that we are more complete if we possess more are offered to us. Similarly to a fish in water responding to the shiny bait does our contemporary system of values work. Ina’s appeal is to be soft ( the work ‘I dare to be soft’)- this is the ability to absorb from the world like a soft blotting membrane what it gives us without sinking and push off  like a spring, not to  lose  the content and preserve our identity buried under a multitude of comforts. Buried is as well as the woman and the girl in her under the illusionary comfort creating a deficit of real happiness. So the object ‘My Minnie is a brand’ urges her not to be afraid to be immature, innocent and to open the childlike in her.

Do we really feel comfortable in this comfort environment? Are we happy in this daydream of success and luxury? These are the questions in the works ’Comfortable’ – the pillow-objects situated on the floor below in the exhibition space, which seem to ridicule the entire sham of our consumer culture that has turned into a product for our consciousness. Equally  comfortably amongst them as a reference to the surrounding esoteric literature – the personal counselor of contemporary man on the staircase of success and personal development- stands the work ‘Rainbow Brain’.

As Ina claims the exhibition is a peculiar recipe for happiness striving to imprint in the history of our reality, to evoke those forgotten emotions which take us back to ourselves before laying the first brick of the wall of comfort. As long as we are can, as long as we are real.

By Martina Stefanova

 

Ina Trifonova was born in Yambol in 1981. She graduated from the National Academy of Arts  in 2005 with major ‘Textile’ and in 2010 became MA in Fashion and in 2017 was awarded  a PH Degree in Visual Arts at the Fashion Department of the Academy . She has scientific publications in the dissertation  thesis  ‘Architectural Principles In the Conceptual Fashion Design and the Dress As an Art Object From the End of the 20th and the Beginning of the 21st century ‘. During the period she has won a series of awards in this sphere. In fashion Ina is interested in its relationship with contemporary art and in 2007 she was invited to the First International Festival of Contemporary Art in Moscow at the Manege. In 2012 she had her first solo exhibition in Sofia at the independent exhibition space ‘The Fridge’. In 2013 she gave a Fashion Video Performance ‘A Dress Can Form a Reality’ in Bulgaria Mall. In 2014 again she featured a Fashion Performance called ‘Photoshoot’at the then ‘Antrakt’ Gallery in Sofia. Some more fashion performances in alternative spaces ensued, where Ina explored the relationship between fashion and contemporary art.