Painting found me when I needed it most. After a period of serious illness that left me unable to fully control my hand, I returned home with an unexpected, overwhelming urge to create.

Unable to hold a brush, I picked up a palette knife instead — and something remarkable happened. With every stroke, I found myself diving into a world I hadn't known existed in me. The painting healed what medicine couldn't finish.

In my years as a journalist at Bulgarian National Television — capturing stories through words, searching for the truth in other people's lives — painting became the second voice I couldn't ignore. It gave me a new way to speak. One that uses color, texture, and form to reveal what words cannot. The storyteller in me never left — she just found new tools.

Today I create layered dreamscapes, where memory of visited places dissolves into emotion. My cityscapes hover between the remembered and the invented. The bridges, arches, and shadowed façades in my work are built from personal history, imagination, and the quiet residue of places we've loved and lost.

I often hear visitors say a painting reminds them of somewhere they've been — not a real place, but one they recognize from memory. That is exactly what I am reaching for. When you stand in front of my work, I want you to find yourself in it. To sit on that balcony. To walk that street. To feel what you didn't know you were carrying. You are allowed to feel all of it.