Description

Tekla Aleksieva was born in Sofia. She enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia and later gained fame with her illustrations for the science fiction series Galaktika Library of the Varna publishing house Georgi Bakalov, a series that was published between 1979 and 1989. The current drawing is the original cover of a book from the Eco series and belongs to the series of the Galaktika Library. Her illustrations oscillate between surrealism and realism. The objects, such as the house, the figures and the sky are existent realities but how she combines and presents them in an imagined space is surreal. Very clear lines and bright colours make her drawings vivid and positive. While illustrations are often viewed as a category of applied art, Tekla Aleksieva made them with the idea to encapsulate the text in one image, while also connecting it to the other drawings from the same series. She is an example of female artist whose possibilities were limited in that period of time in Bulgaria. The themes of science fiction are still relevant since, past and present utopias and dystopias, materialism and consumerism are still important issues in society.