Is This The Finish Line Or The Beginning

Is This The Finish Line Or The Beginning?/ Tова финалът ли е или началото?

study sketch, pencil and pale gold on 300lb Fabriano Artistico paper, image size 22 x 29,5 cm, Anton Terziev, 2021, Private collection

Foto material used: photo by Harry How/Getty Images depicts American professional mixed martial artist Tony Ferguson a.k.a El Cucuy

LAS VEGAS, NV – OCTOBER 06: Tony Ferguson looks on while competing against Anthony Pettis in their lightweight bout during the UFC 229 event inside T-Mobile Arena on October 6, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy the author
Title credit: Svetoslav Todorov - writer, editor, correspondent

Part of NTFL series (2019-)

Unexhibited

Is This The Finish Line Or The Beginning?/ Tова финалът ли е или началото?

study sketch, pencil and pale gold on 220 lb white paper, image size 30 x 40 cm, Anton Terziev, 2022,

Foto material used: photo by Harry How/Getty Images depicts American professional mixed martial artist Tony Ferguson a.k.a El Cucuy

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy the author
Title credit: Svetoslav Todorov- writer, editor, correspondent

Part of NTFL series (2019-)

Unexhibited

Anton Terziev’s portrait of Tony “El Cucuy” Ferguson crackles with raw urgency. The scratchy graphite over a muted, earth-toned wash captures the fighter’s gaunt features and haunted gaze, as if the toll of endless bouts is etched into his very skin. Broad, uneven strokes across the chest and shoulders evoke the abrasion of the cage, while deep shadows around the eyes hint at obsession and exhaustion. As part of the No Time For Losers series, this image isn’t a celebration of victory so much as a warning: the lust for instant glory can carve scars deeper than any opponent’s blows. Context is everything—without it, triumph becomes tragedy.

The Christening of the Fighter / Покръстването на боеца

pencil and pale gold on 300lb Fabriano Artistico paper, image size 20 x 20 cm, 2021, Anton Terziev, Photo: © the artist. Courtesy the author

Foto material used: WWE and MMA Mexican-American professional wrestler José Alberto Rodríguez Chucuan a.k.a Alberto Del Rio's photography image

Title credit: Svetoslav Todorov - writer, editor, correspondent

Anton Terziev’s The Christening of the Fighter (2021) condenses the savage theater of combat sports into a 20×20 cm pencil drawing—subtly punctuated with pale gold—on 300 lb Fabriano Artistico paper. Portraying Alberto Del Rio in a ritualistic, dominant pose, Terziev’s precise musculature and veined textures capture both the athlete’s raw power and underlying vulnerability. The title’s “christening” reframes violence as a transformative rite of passage: a public spectacle that forges identity as much as it destroys the body. Gold accents simultaneously glorify and critique the commodification of pain, reminding us that beneath every triumph lies a personal—and cultural—cost.

Part of NTFL series (2019-)

Unexhibited

In the series No Time for Losers I examine just that – what it takes from you, what and whom you pay, who constructs the content of success as a symbol and metaphor, what is its shelf life? I do it through the well-known moment of triumph, mandatory for sport photographers. A freeze-frame, in which I comment on the role interrelations between the award, the awardee and the award presenter.

I hit the brakes on the rat race for quick, immediate, instagrammable success. This concept is like a tomb. A remarkable pantheon, which you furnish meticulously with awards, trophies in your CV and what not, to the last day of your life.

Whoever wants to be a „relevant participant in the processes“ knows that things like vulnerability, exposedness and sensitivity smell of failure, they don’t make you competitive on the market. Like in sports, whose direct aesthetics I borrow for my series.

From an early age, you have to run in the right lane or track. Lest you compete on top level but outside of the field, or even worse – out of the range of the cameras reporting the game from the pitch.