Between reality and abstraction

What impresses most in the artworks of the French artist Sofia Leconte Mitev is the preciseness and attention to details with which she creates her paintings.
Beyond the technical skills and within the eyes gaze, her works painted with oil or acrylic predispose to reflection and dream; the painter evokes the freedom of imagination amidst the strict and rigorous order of her works. Perturbing the reality outside the windowpanes, reversing the genuine sense of vision, the art painter alters the ordinary.

On the “Passers-by” series, it seems that shadows replace humans to whom they were supposed to be bound, which incites the inversion of visions playing with the audience’s perception.

Then we consider the shadows importance during the centuries, remembering the words of Leonardo Da Vinci: “The first picture was the outline of the man’s shadow on the wall cast by the sun” or Plato’s philosophy with regard to the cavern allegory, as well as the Amerindians’ believe that the shadow is part of the soul.

This play with perception may also be found in her paintings of buildings’ reflections:

What do we observe? At first sight, the spectator would notice perspective errors and construction defects. Suddenly we realize why the windows are curved, why sometimes they hang on the sky. Then we perceive an escape towards the imaginary and a feeling of swinging between reality and abstraction.

Sofia Leconte Mitev spreads this liberty of mind in her paintings of “Cities at night”, giving the spectator an opportunity to interfere himself on her art: most of them are painted in phosphorescent acrylic, so the spectator can “switch” the light and observe a second painting in the original one. An ephemeral artwork since it dies away in several minutes, let differently lighted buildings reappear.