About
The tenderness in Sevda Semer’s drawings is a way of revealing complex emotional states. Whether she creates books, installations, textiles, audio, or video works, she always manages to draw the viewer away from the everyday and into her own world. Behind the delicate visuals lie powerful personal stories that gradually move beyond the intimate and become universal narratives.
Maria Vassileva, curator
___
Across mediums, the central theme of my work is time. What do we do with time, and what does it do with us? Nearly all my projects begin with a specific topic, question, or memory – collective or personal. Where others might choose a medium to reflect a subject, I choose a time constraint that best fits it, and begin working from there. During this period, I spend each day with the piece, sometimes moving between mediums, sometimes remaining within a carefully chosen one for an extended duration.
I am interested in the dialogue between collective and subjective experience. Like layers in sediments of geology, our experiences are never simply our own – they are shaped by outside climates, pressures, and forces. Each work becomes a record of that passage through time and force: an accumulation of moments and traces.
Selected solo exhibitions
2023 Pages of a diary, Charta Gallery, Sofia
2022 Check In, curated by Marcus Graf, Collect Gallery, Istanbul
2021 Two forces that create one another, curated by Irina Batkova, +359 Gallery, Sofia
2019 Figures - Part II, curated by Daniela Radeva, Contemporary Space Gallery, Varna
2019 Figures - Part I, curated by Daniela Radeva, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia
2018 The Things That Didn’t Happen, curated by Stefka Tsaneva, Ö space, Sofia
2018 One perfect day, +359 Gallery, Sofia
2017 Recent Paintings, Gallery 2.0, Sofia
2014 Wide Cube performance, 0GMS Gallery, Sofia
Selected group exhibitions
2024 Edible stories, Credo Bonum, Sofia
2022 It’s showtime, curated by Marcus Graf, Istanbul Contemporary
2021 Moving images, moving bodies, curated by Ludwig Seyfarth, Goethe Institut Sofia
2021 Let them draw III, curated by Pravdoliub Ivanov and Vesselina Sarieva, Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv
2020 ABYSSAL, curated by Mitko Mitkov, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg
2020 Art without/with the times?, curated by Daniela Radeva and Luchezar Boyadjiev, Sofia city art gallery
2019 Good mirrors are not cheap, curated by Chiara Cartuccia, Goethe Institut
2019 BAZA Award for contemporary art nominees exhibition, curated by Daniela Radeva, Sofia city art gallery
2019 Periods, curatorial project & group exhibition by Ivan Mudov, Institute for contemporary art, Sofia
2018 Alter me Alter you, curated by by Clelia Coussonet, Goethe Institut, Sofia
2017 Domus Aurea, participating artist at Voin de Voin’s performance, Aether, Sofia
2017 Art start, group exhibition, curated by Vesela Nozharova, Stefka Tsaneva, Daniela Radeva, Goethe Institut, Sofia
2014 Art Book Fair, Vancouver
2014 Public Address, group exhibition, curated by My Name is Scot and Leannej, Red house for culture and debate, Sofia
Selected residencies, internships, projects in non-traditional spaces
2025 Single pane gallery, Copenhagen
2024 Zar pop-up, Copenhagen
2018 Ö space project by Stefka Tsaneva, Sofia
2016/17 Print Internship, Hato Press, London
