{"id":15675,"date":"2025-11-06T18:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/?p=15675"},"modified":"2025-11-06T18:22:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:22:28","slug":"artwork-of-the-month-november-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/?p=15675","title":{"rendered":"Artwork of the Month \/ November 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Pesce Tulipano (Tulip Fish)<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nKina Bogdanova<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

2019
\nMurrine, beads, mirrored glass, Tiffany glass, fabric, cement mortar, Styrodur structure
\n70 cm x 55 cm x 7 cm<\/p>\n

At first glance, one might think that Kina Bogdanova\u2019s mosaic sculpture represents an ornamental flower, perhaps a vase in form of a flower. By its form, it could be a tulip. However, the title suggests it to be a fish, more exactly a \u201cTulip Fish\u201d. The body of the fish very stylised. It is deprived of his lateral fins, and his tail fin is only hinted by the form and a black fabric. Its three-dimensional body is adorned with a red dominated mosaic formed by beads, mirrored and Tiffany glass. These mosaic elements might be seen as the fish scales. On the darker coloured head is a small round eye: a circle of black pearls surrounds a white field, which accentuates a murrina in yellow and red shades.<\/p>\n

The positioning of the fish is particularly striking. In contrast to the more customary representation as a horizontally swimming fish, the \u201cTulip Fish\u201d has its head pointing vertically downwards. This posture originates from Kina’s source of inspiration and her personal interpretation of it: one of the last poems by the American writer Raymond Carver<\/a><\/span>. In \u201cThe Painter and the Fish<\/a><\/span>\u201d (published posthumously in 1989) describes a night-time walk by a tired and disillusioned painter. After a series of other observations, he sees a fish jumping out of the water several times. This experience is so stirring for him that he immediately returns to his studio and changes his life. Thus liberated, he can bear witness to everything he has seen on canvas.<\/p>\n

Regarding the poem, Kina captured the moment, when the fish returns into the water. For her, the vision of the fish jumping is precisely a suspended moment that magically \u2018healed\u2019 the depressive state of the painter. Outside of water, which is its natural environment, the fish does not breath. It is as if it were suspended in another dimension, the dimension of death. But through this \u2018death\u2019 it has the chance to return to life.* It is a kind or rebirth for the fish when it returns to the water.<\/p>\n

Kina\u2019s interpretation of the fish as symbol of revival, life and healing, can also be found in various cultures and religions. For example, was the fish a representation and identifying feature in early Christianity. Coming from the conversion of the fisherman disciples to fisher of men, the fish represented Jesus and herewith resurrection. A similar attribution is also valid for the tulip, since it is a sign of spring and the reawakening of nature. Until today, the red for vestments and hangings within the context of Christian liturgy in the roman catholic church, symbolises the Holy Spirit. Catholic priests wear red cassocks inter alia on Good Friday, the commemoration day of Jesus crucifixion, hence the precondition for his resurrection.<\/p>\n

Besides the \u201cTulip Fish\u201d Kina created other versions of mosaic fishes in other colours. They are all based on Raymond Carver\u2019s \u201cThe Painter and the Fish\u201d. Though the individual interpretations of the single sculptures depend on the colouring and title.<\/p>\n

* This is based on the Kina\u2019s explanation about her series of fishes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kina Bogdanova<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in 1974 in Varna, Bulgaria, Kina Bogdanova studied applied art with the focus on textile and graduated in figurative art pedagogics at the University \u201cKliment Ohridski\u201d<\/a><\/span> in Sofia, Bulgaria. Subsequently she taught art in secondary schools. In parallel, she pursued her personal artistic practice by painting. In 2002, she moved to Italy, where she immediately started to expose her work and participated successfully in competitions. When Kina relocated to the province of Ravenna<\/a><\/span> in 2005, she had the possibility to examine the ancient Byzantine mosaics onsite instead of admiring them only in books. Inspired by this experience she continued her artistic education at the Accademia di Belle Arti<\/a><\/span> in Ravenna<\/a><\/span> with a two-year course specialising in mosaic. Since then, she worked in some of the traditional mosaic workshops in town and integrated this ancient craft in her creations to translate it into her personal contemporary art language.<\/p>\n

The technique of mosaic<\/a><\/span> has a long-standing tradition starting in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. Practised by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, it came in the 5th century to Ravenna, when the town was first main residency of the Western Roman emperors and since the 6th century capital of the Eastern Roman \/ Byzantine Exarchate. In this time, until the conquest by the Lombards in 751, many world-famous churches, like San Vitale<\/a><\/span> and the two churches dedicated to Saint<\/a><\/span> Apollinaris<\/a><\/span> were constructed and embellished with rich mosaics. These traditional patterns or images are made of small regular or irregular pieces of coloured stone, glass or ceramic. They are covering walls, apses and floors. Therefore, they are mostly two-dimensional. Only in modern times mosaics became three-dimensional. For example, the Catalan architect and designer Antonio Gaudi<\/a><\/span> conceived benches and animal sculptures for the Park G\u00fcell<\/a><\/span> (1900-1914) in Barcelona. They are covered with ceramic and stone patterns by Josep Maria Jujol<\/a><\/span>. Furthermore, some coloured Nana-sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle<\/a><\/span> (1930-2002) are familiar. In contemporary mosaic art, sculptures with mosaics are more common.<\/p>\n

Regarding Kina\u2019s oeuvre, it is remarkable that she does mosaic sculptures, while she comes by artistic origine from painting, which she still continuous. Nevertheless, also two-dimensional mosaic decorations are part of her oeuvre. Mainly animals and floral motives, are her models for the three-dimensional creations. These are richly embellished by murrine<\/a><\/span>, beads, mirrored glass, and Tiffany glass, but she introduces also fabric. Many works are relatively monochrome, although she also likes to use bright colours. In her paintings, she uses a similar colour scheme. Even though her paintings are anchored in the plane, the sculptures are voluminous and have a structured skin by the mosaics. One of these works \u201cTulip Fish\u201d from 2019 is our Artwork of the Month \/ November 2025.<\/p>\n

During her career, Kina had many solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions. Far beyond her main zone of activity in and around Ravenna and the Emilia Romagna region, her works travelled throughout Italy, Turkey (Topkapi Palace<\/a><\/span>, Istanbul), France (Gradignan, Obernai), Latvia (Riga) and Bulgaria (Plovdiv, Jambol). Every year, the University of Bologna honours people for their engagement to promote rights and intercultural dialogue with the “Novi Cives – Costruttori di Cittadinanza<\/a><\/span>” (Novi Cives – Builders of Citizenship) award. From 2015 to 2022 and in 2025 Kina made the prize mosaic. Moreover, she participated in executions of the mosaic mural \u201cLa Poderosa\u201d (Sancti Spiritus, Cuba) and the mosaic installation \u201cAlchemy\u201d in Moscow. She was granted several prizes. Her most recent contributions were to the group exhibitions \u201cTre linguaggi musivi diversi\u201d at the gallery B4<\/a><\/span> in Bologna and \u201cOltre il pensiero musivo a Ravenna\u201d at the Galleria del Ridotto<\/a><\/span> in Cesena, which were part of the \u201cBiennale di Mosaico Contemporaneo of Ravenna 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kina lives and works in the province of Ravenna.<\/p>\n

www.artekina.it<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pesce Tulipano (Tulip Fish) Kina Bogdanova 2019 Murrine, beads, mirrored glass, Tiffany glass, fabric, cement mortar, Styrodur structure 70 cm x 55 cm x 7 cm At first glance, one might think that Kina Bogdanova\u2019s mosaic sculpture represents an ornamental flower, perhaps a vase in form of a flower. By its form, it could be… (read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1713,4061,4446,9,3351,4431,4448,4444,4445,4435,4439,4434,4440,4442,4432,3075,4430,2674,3607,4447,4428,541,4437,4441,4443,4436,4438,4433,4429],"class_list":["post-15675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artwork-of-the-month","tag-1713","tag-4061","tag-antonio-gaudi","tag-artwork-of-the-month","tag-barcelona","tag-beads","tag-biennale-di-mosaico-contemporaneo","tag-bulgaria","tag-byzantine-mosaics","tag-cement-mortar","tag-early-christianity","tag-fabric","tag-fish","tag-good-friday","tag-mirrored-glass","tag-mosaic","tag-murrine","tag-niki-de-saint-phalle","tag-november","tag-park-guell","tag-pesce-tulipano","tag-ravenna","tag-raymond-carver","tag-reawakening","tag-rebirth","tag-styrodur-structure","tag-the-painter-and-the-fish","tag-tiffany-glass","tag-tulip-fish-kina-bogdanova"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artificialis.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}