Kalin Nickolov
	BULGARIAN SCIENCE-FICTION ARTISTS
	"SF artists, such as they are, are a tumor of contemporary
art, a modern type of kitsch! Stylish blondes,chased by the outer
space uglies, are being saved by human super-males. Nobody cares
how long they have travelled before getting a chance to save
their personified dreams."
	There is, unfortunately, some truth in this. Most paintings
and illustrations offer a simplistic, off the-cuff treatment of
an already overworked theme, generally on the promise that SF is
juvenile stuff, anyway.
	Fortunately, there are some real SF artists around (although
the division between SF and any other kind of art is arbitrary,
inasmuch as true art is always based on the fantastic), who are
at hand to defend the good name of their chosen profession. Let's
call them Space Artists and point out that science has opened up
horizons which really challenge our imagination. And let us be
sure that Bulgarian SF artists have reached a high level of
professional achievement, and this is no boast, I am happy to
say, as you can find out for yourselves by looking at the
illustrations. Well, let me try and list a few of them.
	Vassil Ivanov, for instance. His is a talent hard to compare
with others. A wondrously fantastic hand which entered the
universe of paint and canvass from a shanty, about which the
artist the quips:
	"I knocked my head on its roof so often that I made a hole
through which I could see the stars."
	Stephan Lefterov and Dimitar Yankov - one a mathematician,
the other a structural engineer - have given us a galaxy of
wonderful paintings, drawn out of love for the stars. The early
sixties saw the first exhibition of Lefterov in the Sea Garden of
Varna. Yankov, accidentally passing by, entered and found out
that there are others like him... The first fan-artists. Soon
afterwards the talent of Plamen Avramov takes its due place in
almost every major gallery. Unconventionality and the good-will
of her colleagues placed Svetla Hristova, a young girl, also at
the top. She is now at the University, but her first paintings
date back to her school days.
	Emil Vulev,another great name in Bulgarian SF art, is a
graduate of the French Academy. His works are a synthesis of
surrealism, futurism and candid snapshots.
	The interpretation of music - this is the life-work of Peter
Petrov, that wizard of the screw-driver. Paintings, drawings,
special effects, a riot of color accompanied by space music -
this is what he does, and he does it wonderfully. He says:
	"If I could build a space-ship, it would be a painted
meteor, with Heaven and Hell peeping from its cracks."
	Vulko Damianov is an upholder of the naivistic in his SF
paintings.This is something rare indeed in this otherwise very
popular on the Balkans genre. Fantasy has always been a very
large component of the local art forms. Medieval frescoes
regularly depict the Sun and the stars,while one of them even
shows Hailley's comet in detail.
	Life and the Universe - this grand, all-encompassing theme
is the guiding light for masters of the brush such as Hristo
Semionov, Ivan Kirkov, Liuben Dimanov, Lika Yanko, as well as the
illustrators Nikifor Ruskov, Stoian Shindarev and Alexander
Denkov. They have behind them the tradition of Vadim
Lasarkevich's illustrations and Boris Georgiev's paintings. Boris
Georgiev, the grand old man of Bulgarian SF art, was a close
friend of Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he toured India, and of
Einstein, who arranged an exhibition of his pictures in Germany.
	Fandom has given birth to several other talented amateurs
such as Plamen Semkov, Nickolai Karagiosov, Nickolai Kondev, the
brothers Plamen and Kiril Atanasov. Amateurs they may be, but
their paintings were the only ones stolen, despite the security
measures, from this year's Amateaur Art exhibition.
	It isn't easy, of course, to reach the lonely SF universe
among the many different trends in contemporary art.Trying to
keep at bay all the demons of art - kitsch, cheap theatricals,
cartoonery - while hoping that your lonely universe will be
reached, if not by love, then by a public which will be able to
understand your art. Hope is all. I know, because I'm still
there.