Magnan Emrich Contemporary is pleased to announce the debut solo show of Eva Davidova with the gallery. The exhibition presents new photographs, film stills, and animated video work by the Spanish/Bulgarian artist. The exhibition will be on view from April 3rd – May 10th, 2008.

In location one & two, an animated series of videos, Davidova inserts a human element into strange situations and landscapes that begin slowly morphing and shifting, creating constantly changing perspectives. The actions in the film are amplified, repeated and distorted until the people in the images, as well as the viewer, are isolated and confronted by the absence of any visual certainty. As time passes and the video loops continuously, it becomes clear that the anxious, obsessive situations are fabricated and incessant.

Davidova’s photographs aim to exploit the unsuspecting viewer’s imagination by presenting austere, almost sterile environments. What at first glance appears somewhat ordinary reveals itself to be atypical and uncomfortable. In Estirar La Luz (Stir the Light), the artist is sitting alone in a room inside a tub that appears much too small for her. She is reaching toward the sunlight shining against the wall, but in this surrealistic world, the sunlight moves towards her. Davidova does not attempt to merely illustrate ideas, but to make things happen: the photos play with visual paradoxes and question the origin and the purpose of an image or an action. She shows that by dispossessing the human and inanimate elements of their routine meanings, they cease to be symbols and become just the thing itself.

The exhibition also includes pieces from El Olvido, which was shown at the Instituto Cervantes in Sofia, Bulgaria and was nominated for the Bulgarian Contemporary Art MTel Awards. In these photos, Davidova addresses ideas of imposition and denial through physical relationships, weather real or invented. These distorted relationships occur between the inhabitants of a bizarre world and the landscapes and architecture surrounding them. This results in a tension between the people and objects that are clear, visible, obsolete and falling out of view.

Davidova has exhibited painting, installation, photography and video in New York, Madrid, Barcelona, London and Germany since 1987. She has had solo shows at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the Spanish Cervantes Institute and numerous group exhibitions. She was included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, and most recently at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Moderno Sevilla and the Kunsthalle Plon in Germany. She has received grants and awards from The Shearwater Foundation, the Mapfre Foundation, the Bancaja Foundation, The Sally and Don Lucas Artist Programs, VCCA, The Delfina Studios Trust, and the French government’s “Casa de Velazquez” in Madrid. Davidova is also the art director for the Spanish film “Sindrome”, several short films, and the author of video pieces for musicians and architects. She is a graduate of the School of Fine Arts, Complutense University, Madrid and lives between New York and Madrid.