STATEMENT
Centered on the human being and our individual senses of existence, my art describes life as I see it, freed from the complex structures of specific visible forms.
By overlaying many fragmentary hand-drawn and digital layers, my paintings are a kind of pentimenti. One-of-a-kind images that build memorable new visual perception of coexistence with the nature and environment.
Always a reflection on complex feelings about the depth of human interaction with nature, my work plays with polar binaries between figuration and abstraction, macro and micro; biological and mechanical.
BIOGRAPHY
Bulgarian-born Los Angeles-based artist Zlatka Paneva has an MFA from the Academy of Fine Art, Sofia, Bulgaria and studied ceramics in C Zauli studio/Faenza/Italy. Paneva is a multidisciplinary artist whose new modes of expression and technical innovation allow her to create art that melts the boundaries between media.
While pursuing her painting career in the US, she began as a fashion illustrator before opening Studio Paneva in Los Angeles, where she successfully adapted her art into the design and production of ceramic art, tile and design. For over ten years, her products have been distributed nationally and internationally through fine tile and design showrooms such as Waterworks, Country Floors and Ann Sacks (Kohler Company). Her designs have been installed in private residences, corporate offices and commercial projects. She expands her creativity with constant experiments, including the combination of traditional skills with the most appropriate technological innovations. She has worked as a sculptor, graphic and jewelry designer, tile conservator and interior designer. .
In 2010, with her Rococcola collection, Zlatka Paneva came full circle, back to creating art on paper and canvas, but now her work is inspired by design, color and all the media she has succeeded in over the years. Her print and illustration collection RococcoLA enjoys a worldwide cult following and has been licensed to high-profile companies and publications such as The New York Times, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Capital/Mexico among others...in addition to artwork and design to order from all genres.
Since 2018, Z Paneva has focused exclusively on her paintings and ceramics, where with her sense of expansive awareness she is able to melt the boundaries between media to exist in her own unique way of expression. She creates concepts that serve as modern mythologies.
Zlatka Paneva’s work can be found in the collections of the National Museum of Art, Bulgaria; the International Museum of Ceramic Art, Italy and in other public and major private collections in the United States, Europe and Asia.