Biographical profile
Riv Bulgari was born on March 2, 1966 in Sofia. He graduated from the Art High School in Sofia; graduated from the National Academy of Arts, specialty "Mural" and from NATFIZ - specialty "Animation".Works in various genres - painting, graphics, sculpture, mural painting, documentary cinema, music productions and studios. He is not only an artist, but producer and businessman.His works are not subject to one direction, and his brush goes through realism, cubism, surrealism, pop art. At the end of the 20th century, his style changed. Riv experimented with various theories, techniques and ideas.From there comes the freedom of his expressiveness, which is not limited in overcoming the technique with which he works. Gradually, the compilation of all this builds his own handwriting and original style.Until the age of 15, he grew up in the studio of his father, the artist IvanB. Ivanov. There he goes through a variety of techniques that his father works with. From painting and wood engravings, through lithography and drypoint, to aquatint, sculpture, ceramics, dry and wet frescoes, murals, collages. Riv creates numerous portraits and still lifes. Today, he keeps about 300 paintings from his childhood.In the early 1990s, he divided his time between Berlin and Sofia. He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and, impressed by it, painted the painting"The Circle of Life". A series of solo exhibitions in Shtudgard, Chemnitz and Horb , Baden Vunterberg, after which he lived in Rovereto, Italy. His painting became part of the permanent collection of the Brera Academy of Art, in Milan.
From 1995 to 1997, Riv Bulgari lived in Canada. There he gradually began to change the style of his works, rediscovering pop art, minimalism, conceptual modern art.In 1996, he presented a solo exhibition at the Carmel Gallery in Ottawa.In 1997, he moved to live in Manhattan, New York. It is there in the epicenter of contemporary modern art - Soho. He met the American artist Mark Kostabi and began to refine his style and organize the painting of his paintings, which Mark only signed. He also met Jeff Koons and arranged for the production of some of his sculptures, one of which was sold for millions. Meets and collaborates with LA2, who along with Keith Haring brings street graffiti to Manhattan galleries. For a period of one year, he lived and worked with the Canadian artist David Nicholson. Makes a collaborative work with Mark Kostabi.He participated in numerous general exhibitions and spent part of his freetime in the studios of the photographer Ann Leibovitz, the Japanese photographer Go Hotoda and his first wife Hiromi Nakano.In 1999, Riv Bulgari made realistic, life-size sculptures for Japanese sculptor Michio Ishihara and figures for Madame Tussauds Museum in Manhattan. In 2000, Riv Bulgari was granted permanent US citizenship following feedback from the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.In 2001, he founded The Sound City - an American music and real estate company.In 2002, he won First Prize in the "Apocalypse Now" competition: his painting was purchased and became part of the permanent exhibition of the Art History Museum in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.In 2003, with the help of the owner of the same museum, Yuko Nii held a solo exhibition where all the paintings were sold.The period 2004 - 2015 Riv has participated in numerous general exhibitions around the world and lived in Mexico and Peru. His works have been purchased and become part of the permanent exhibitions of: "Harada" Ecological Center in Tokyo,"Konepaia & Virtanen" - Helsinki, the British Museum of the Academy of Art- London., Art Museum of the BAS - Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2008, Riv realized a solo exhibition in the building of the National Opera and Ballet - Sofia, Bulgaria.Since 2015, Riv has been actively engaged in sculpture, and the very next year he opened a solo exhibition of sculptures at the Permanent Consulate of Bulgaria in Manhattan, New York.In 2017, together with Dominic Nahas, he published the book "The Thin Line", based on his previous paintings and his new sculptural works. The book analyzes and provokes the thin line between the valuable in art and kitsch.In 2022 - He has a retrospective exibition “ Out of The Daily Banality” in Gallery Museum - ANEL,Sofia.In 2023 - One man show “ Colors and Forms”at VIVACOM Gallery, Sofia. In the period 2018 - 2021, Riv Bulgari travels around the world. He made many drawings and oil paintings, which are characterized by the accumulation of oil paints and generalized stylized imagery. Participated in numerous public exhibitions in New York. Made collaborative paintings with American artists, which were subsequently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Brooklyn, New York. He continues to work actively in his studios in Bulgaria, Slovenia and the United States, painting paintings with cosmic imagery and bright colors.
