Interview with Trayko POPOV

Hello Trayko, you started drawing professionally in 1972 at the age of 17. How did you become a drawing artist so young and how was this first professional experience?

 

I started painting professionally when I was a student. I won the first prize at a cartoon competition announced by a Sofia newspaper on the topic "Scientific and Technical Revolution". As a result “Technika”, publishing house in Sofia for popular technical literature, asked me to illustrate their books. And so began my professional career in cartooning, illustration and book design.

 

In 1989 the Berlin wall came down and former East European countries like Bulgaria joined the ‘free world’. What was the impact on your life and work?

 

Unfortunately, I did not directly witness the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the communist system. A year earlier, using my visa to go to Italy to receive a cartoon award, I took a plane from Belgrade to Los Angeles, where my brother lived for years. I worked there as a janitor, waiter and driver. Meanwhile I specialized in computer graphics at UCLA and worked for one of the biggest software companies at the time.

 

How do you think your colleague Ivailo Tsvetkov would describe you?

 

I think he would say that I have not yet learned to drink beer like him and I’ll never learn it!!!

 

On the website www.singulart.com I saw your work categorized in several themes like ‘Library’, ‘In the sky’, ‘Movement’, ‘Walls’ etc... Do you make such a series deliberately, or is this in order to participate in cartoon contests?

 

I was fascinated when I was invited by this gallery to send my works. None of these works participated in cartoon exhibitions. You know that the financing of cartoonists is a huge problem, everyone wants to publish his works, but there are few cartoonists who are paid for it. I provided my works for sale on this website and things are going well. I have found collectors who like my works.

 

Can you tell me what your 2 favourite topics are and why?

 

Of course "Movement". Everyone who knows me will agree, I can't stand in one place, I'm constantly on the move, changing things around me and in my work, experimenting with all kinds of techniques that impress me, and I'm never satisfied. Sometimes I stop working on a painting and start it again differently.

 

The second topic is "In the sky". Artists are often "in the sky". I like the high view and the admiration I feel when looking even from the window of a plane. It makes me shudder from the grandeur of nature and the fact that we are also a small part of it.

 

Did you experienced censorship in one way or another by publishing cartoons in some magazines?

 

Yes of course. My cartoons were not published in magazines for many years. But now censorship in our country is much more powerful in all the major publications. They can completely censor authors, not publish them anywhere. They have a machine built with many trolls for reporting posts in Facebook.

 

I have seen some of your splendid works in acrylic paint. You are a complete artist; why do you use the computer if it’s already perfect?

 

There are many different techniques and it took me years to reach my present level. I like computer painting because it is very fast, efficient and you can mix materials that are difficult to match. For me, painting on a tablet is much more intuitive, I never do a preliminary sketch. I don't know in what colour I'm going to finish, I decide everything during the process.

 

You’re not afraid to use a lot of colours in your works. Although this gives a happy feeling, is it the purpose to put a second, deeper and less funny layer in your work?

 

I don't know, I don't do it consciously. I like the colours and am happy in their presence. Maybe I'm trying to create some contrast, I always tray to work on different levels.

 

You also make small animated cartoons. Do you make this as a hobby or is it on demand?

 

Earlier, I made them custom and they were published on the websites of the software companies that built the product. With the help of me and other artists new products were tested that way. Now I make them only for my own pleasure or for my job.