Paka Traykova

For the Bulgarian digital artist Paka Traykova the horizon is not just a formal feature that appears in many of her landscape-evoking compositions, but a potent visual symbol that implies a world without physical boundaries. Her work straddles many styles and subjects, from Cubist-like human figures to surreal, Pop art-hued landscapes. But her choice of medium — a digital painting program printed onto canvas — pushes her works in the direction of abstraction. Supposed limitations like a reduced palette of bold, computerized colors and deliberately pixilated lines and forms become powerful visual elements in Traykova’s work.

Each digital piece juxtaposes sharp geometric strips and circles of color with “hand-drawn” forms with jagged points and bulbous contours. Ambiguous forms coalesce momentarily into silhouettes and shapes, but the necessarily flattened plane keeps all elements fluid. She never attempts to approximate the effects of another medium, but rather explores the horizons of what a seemingly simple computer program can do when activated by human users and viewers.