"The apocalyptic paintings of 32-year-old Anastas Konstantinov move in surreal areas, in which people and animals appear in sinister alienation and decay, thus setting various iconographic riddles."
Prof. Dr. Hans Theodor Flemming - Hamburg, 13 January 1989
"These vision, often grotesque and detached, depict a world of inner tension between heaven and earth, good and evil, creation and chaos. This occasionally gloomy dance of swinging spaces and deformed shapes creates an atmosphere that deserves that deserves all our attention - just like it attracted the attention of those "prophets" of misfortune who seem to cast their spells on an universe at end or even after the end of the world."
Joseph Paul Schneider - Luxemburg, Gallery 88, 1991
"Anastas Konstantinov is first of all a thinker. The plot very often precedes the painting in his works. Social and metaphysical motifs, often biblical, create a relevant dilemma that is waiting for its expression on the canvas. In his paintings he depicts the symbols of the modern world on one side, and of a transcendental world on the other; which he often connects with the contour of ancient mural paintings."
Prof. Encho Mutafov, 1984
"I have known Antastas Konstantinov's pictures for a long time. I lay particular stress on his pictures, not the art of painting, because I have always thought that he has a great sense of composing a picture. There is a plot structure beyond boring and meaningless pictures like still lives and empty interiors. I know the paranoiac blue period with the recurring composition of the crucified man as well. I consider his latest exhibition to be a significant advance of the artist. He has achieved greater clarity in compositional structure, enlarged his figurativeness, gone deeper into space and discovered his innate painting ability. His exhibition is modern, even I looked at in the light of the dilemma of the known-unknown. Its message, as I see it, lies in the unknown. Its expressive defiance I do not see so much as a tendency to experiment in a formal aesthetic way but as an attempt to find his own world and own language of painting."
Prof. Dr. Aksinia Djurova, 1986
"The work of Anastas Konstantinov does not offer "aesthetic relaxation" to those who love the art of painting. Quite the opposite - it deliberately looks for provocation, in order to transport the mind of the spectator from the world of ordinary things to the world of imaginary things: the world of artistic reality. With this exhibition, Anastas Konstantinov continues the development that began some years ago. There is something new about it, though. That "new" thing is the central image, thematically uniting the whole exhibition - the image of the fish. The world of fish, as drawn by Anastas Konstantinov, is a parable of life and death, a parable of faith and pain. In this world, just like in ours, there exist competetion, rivalry, ideal, hope, struggle. You may have already guessed - it is not the world of fish. It is our own world that the artist has been painting over and over again.
Prof. Georgi Gerov - Plovdiv, 1988, "Cycle 33" (Fish)
The magic expressionism of Anastas Konstantinov
The self-portrait of the artist from the year 2000: The gigantic head with its lion's mane almost bursts the frame. On the high forehead sticks a thick blue vein like a wall. The eyes below are yellow-framed. The left eye glares at the viewer, a hypnotic, challenging, probing look. His right eye, however, appears misty, mystified, it glances down the red line of the horizon towards a green landscape above which a light, fluffily clouded sky floats. On the other, the left side the sky is gloomy, threatening, lit by lightning. Below the eyes are the two sides of the face, or shall we say: the two sides of the brain, two states of consciousness ? The left side evokes images of the spiritual world. From the white, foggy whirlpool a figure seems to appear, hands clasped in prayer. The left side is spirit, spirituality, religiosity, intellect. On the right side, on the other hand, there is vegetation, green chaos. One is reminded of the rainforest, of primaevel swamps, of the eternal circle of birth, life and death. And below all that is the mouth, wide-open, resolute, a mouth that has something to say. This is a head, a person, an artist at bursting point. Something wants out. And when it is spewed out, it explodes on the canvas - in colour, symbolism, magic. The self-portrait reflects the main theme that is apparent in all of Konstantinov's paintings, the dichotomy of body and spirit. The conflict, however, is usually solved. In Konstantinov's magical world matter and spirit often become one. 'Nowadays many painters', says the artist, 'produce market-oriented pictures that are decorative and pleasant to the eye, but meaningless. In my opinion, these artists are like bridegrooms who are more interested in the dowry than the bride. I believe that art must have a mission, that's quite clear when you look at the history of art. Each painting should have a spiritual quality that embraces everyone who looks at it. My paintings show that there is a God.' Born in 1956, Konstantinov grew up in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, where he still lives and works in his studio in the Old Town, the picturesque historic centre of the city. His work is greatly influenced by the ancient culture and history of this part of the Balkan Peninsular that since time immemorial has been walled Thrace. Even as a child he was fascinated and inspired by the civilizations of the Thracians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantians, Turks and Bulgars whose remnants can be seen everywhere. Even as a child he longed to decypher the secrets of ancient cultures and myths. Later the symbols and spirit of classical culture and mythology would reappear in his paintings, symbolically and thematically. Equally intensive was his interest in nature, in everything that lives. The circle of life, the never-ending metamorphosis and symbiosis of all living things, again and again seeks and finds expression in his work. A wide variety of flora and fauna, often grotesque and metaphorical, inhabits his paintings. Astral dogs, fish, birds; an oyster as the moon, the moon as an oyster; an apple like a female genital; butterflies whose wings are formed like Orpheus' lyre - again death and rebirth, living and dying; and a plethora of fantastic creatures that seem to have sprung from the imagination of a latter day Hieronimus Bosch. It is a strangely wonderful world of disconcerting vitality, of aggression and lyricism, a world both sexual and spiritual, a world in which spirit and matter are one. Orthodox Christianity, its message and mysticism, provides Konstantinov's pictorial world with other profound and powerful symbols. But his is a religiosity that steps boldly beyond the limits of Orthodoxy. It asks irksome questions that are relevant not only for our time, but for all times. In a series of crucifixion scenes Christ does not appear like a man, but startingly as a fish, the ancient Christian symbol of the Son of God. The crucified fish, mouth gaping in agony, is a motif of expressive simplicity, a surreal jolt to the mind. Also unusual are his portraits of Bulgarian saints. They go beyond the one-dimensional hagiography of traditional icons. They may not be caricatures - although the pious might think so; the corporeality of the saints is aggressively emphasized, they are endowed with personality, individuality, character - they become men. Again the conflict of spirit and matter leads to symbiosis, if not harmony. The same is true for the angel with the trumpet flying over a waste land. This is no ethereal figure but a creature of earth as well as light, both human and divine. Konstantinov's religious paintings - if you can call them that - do not lend themselves easily to contemplation and meditation. God's creation is depicted as a permanent challenge to man, to his free will. Religious message is eroticised, eroticism spiritualised. This applies especially to his erotic pictures that celebrate the sacred wedding, the sacred act of love. In these paintings his in any case unorthodox Orthodoxy is transformed into pantheism. True, the triangle of the Trinity, always painted in glowing yellows, is still often the compositional centre; the figure of Christ still floats occasionally above the loving couple; but motifs and ideas from non-Christian cultures predominate - from prehistory, from the classical world, from Indian Tantra. The visual language is archaic, archetypal: Man and his awesome relationship with a chaotic, always changing environment, his difficult dialogue with the divine. The magic expressionism of Anastas Konstantinov is always challenging. You can't just hang out his pictures on the wall and forget them. They won't leave you in peace. They are a provocation. They are committed. And they force the spectator to also commit himself. One cannot evade their power, one has to confront them.
by Fred Evert