ArcAb series

Real places. No image manipulation. See the world through different eyes with the ArcAb series, the artist's long-term photographic exploration to find the magical within the real.

Real places. No image manipulation. See the world through different eyes with the ArcAb series - the artist's long-term photographic exploration into our environment to find the magical within the real, the abstract within the concrete, the inspiring within the existing.

Focusing on architectural abstraction, Desislava Staykova-Learn's ArcAb series images capture real-life places only, and reveal them in an entirely new way through the use of perspective, scale, composition and timing – each work directly crafted with the choices made on-site. The ArcAb pieces are often paired in diptychs or triptychs, showing moments of a story as it unfolds.

The artist’s intention is not for the images to be decoded – although it can be fun to do so – but to trigger the viewer to imagine alternate realities, to question their environment, and showcase what is possible if we would just look at the world around us from a different view.

Artist's bio

Desislava Staykova-Learn's work is most often defined by a signature approach which teases impactful abstract imagery out of real-life situations. Her fascination is to examine our environment and discover constructs which may remain hidden to the regular eye – then reveal them to the viewer, inviting them to question their environment, imagine alternate realities, and examine the world outside as well as the world inside themselves.

Staykova-Learn is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer, graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (the Netherlands) with interdisciplinary arts degree, ArtScience, in 2006. Most recently, Staykova-Learn was chosen International Honoree of the 2020 Women in the Arts Competition (USA) and received twice the Certificate of Artistic Merit from the Luxembourg Art Prize, in 2021 and 2022, for works from her ArcAb photography series. Her art has been showcased in multiple exhibitions and festivals in the US, Netherlands, Bulgaria and Germany.