Bilyana Furnadzhieva is Bulgarian-born visual artist based in Paris since 2011.
graduated from École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs de Paris (2017), Ensaama Olivier de Serres (2013),
National School of Fine Arts Sofia (2011)
bilyana develops a visual artist practice and is the artistic director of crystal sound project – a musical ensemble
focused on cross-genre collaborations.
her work has been presented at SuperMarket ArtFair (Stockholm), Yun-Chia-Chia-Ying Visual Art Link (Taiwan),
Hangar 9 (Geneva), Or blanc (Château de Vincennes, Paris).
bilyana is the winner (two years in a row) of the Chaire Innovation et savoir-faire de la Fondation Bettencourt Schueller
and had 14 months residency at the Cité internationale des arts.
following regular creative stays during the past four years, she has developed a relationship with the artist residency
BKN Björkö Konstnod in the Stockholm archipelago.
she has also been involved in the development of the Prix Bob Calle du livre d’artiste since its creation in 2017.

Artist Statment:

I’m a visual artist working with natural materials, aiming to develop diverse artworks, for which I’m in pursuit of discovering new places and finding elements to use in my compositions. I have a special relationship with nature. Source of inspiration, photographic and drawing subject or almost unreal setting, it is always, in one way or another, present in my images.

After years of experimentation, I took a new direction during the lockdown in 2020 and I concentrated myself on searching the closest environment and getting inspired by the natural presence all around, in the city surroundings as well as the countryside areas. I started working on collages / assemblages and drawings combining natural materials and golden leaf and organizing them in series by geographical area or theme. This comparaison also questions the value of what surrounds us.

My idea behind these compositions is to confront the human mind, used to thinking in grids and the formal liberty of the natural creations. I’m inspired by the Byzantine icons, the Medieval and Renaissance’s
herbariums, as well as paintings and tapestries.

Often my works involve hours of walking around, collecting leaves, flowers, stones, soil, which I clean and treat with glues and varnishes to prevent their drying out and breaking naturally. My desire is to give new life to the natural elements I have chosen and make them equally esteemed as the durable and expensive materials associated with fine arts.

It is extremely important for me to show, through my works, the beauty of each leaf, each petal and the delicacy behind the lines on each stone. My work consists of organizing collections, herbariums and drawings that become a mental cartography of the places from which the elements were taken.
For several years, I also used natural watercolors and I’m still developing this technique. I also create my own color palette by finding plants and soils and extracting pigments out of them.

Nature is our primary reality. I have always been moved by the variety of its colors, its multiple shapes and its fascinating sounds. I delve into myths to find traces of the ancient witches. In my opinion, the role of the witch today is to get inspired as much as possible from forces and phenomenon and to translate them into a visual and sound narrative.

Crystal sound project is presented in the form of sculptures and musical performances, reflecting my desire to link physical form and music. I started out with the idea of making peculiar and unfamiliar objects of my own in search of unexpected sonorities. The research of the specific resonance of the sculptures is achieved through the use of porcelain and pure metal oxides, which create new timbres, specific to each object.

The corpus of my works combines precise elements, made by myself and raw elements, found during my moments of exploration. My musical pieces composed through the use of scores, are conceived as questions – answers between soundtracks, recorded instruments and parts played live. The pieces interact with the noises and the sound context in which they are performed, an evocation of passing time, the ephemeral and the transitory. For me the rhythms played are the primary language that makes our bodies vibrate.

who am I ? how I work ? : https://vimeo.com/492274896 //