Urban Playgrounds

Urban Playgrounds I - ink on paper,. Size: 58 x 46. 5 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist.
Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000
Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Anton Terziev’s ink drawing marries precise stippling with spare linework to evoke an abstract Earth station—“EARTH STATION BUL 59-4”—dominated by vast satellite dishes outlined in dashed contours that suggest both boundary and flux. A delicately rendered fence reinforces the installation’s isolation, while the drifting cloud forms above lend the scene a hushed, dreamlike quality.

In the foreground, a child at play with a dog offers a poignant counterpoint: its soft, simplified rendering anchors the composition and underscores the tension between human innocence and impersonal technology. By juxtaposing intimate figure and monumental machinery, Terziev probes our uneasy alliance with progress—inviting viewers to consider how vast infrastructures shape, contain, and ultimately reflect our shared humanity.

Urban Playgrounds II - ink on paper. Size: 53 x 70 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist
Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000
Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Urban Playgrounds III -ink on paper. Size: 49 x 70 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000

Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Urban Playgrounds IV - ink on paper. Size: 49 x 64, 5 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist
Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000
Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Anton Terziev’s Urban Playgrounds IV deploys his signature stippled ink and dashed-line cartography to stunning effect, turning an industrial chimney and its billowing steam into a bird’s-eye meditation on urban power. The precise, map-like geometry of streets and parcels frames the organic cloud of vapor, suggesting both containment and escape. This tension evokes a wistful, retro-futuristic utopia—half-remembered visions of clean, ordered cities powered by industry’s raw force. In its spare economy of line and texture, the drawing captures the complexities of city life: nostalgia for tomorrow’s promise, and a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the mechanical heart that drives us onward.

Urban Playgrounds V - ink on paper. Size: 59 x 49 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000

Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Across a vast, stippled expanse, Anton Terziev anchors Urban Playgrounds V with a backlit projection of a robed figure—its outstretched arm and the injunction “Stay awake and you all have food to spare” hovering like a moral beacon. A boy at the lower right leans over a game table, drawn in warm, continuous line, while to his left ghost-like outlines of parked cars and city edifices float in cold, dashed strokes. A bold vertical panel bisects the sheet, delineating the fragile sanctuary of childhood play from the encroaching industrial realm. In this poetic tension, Terziev renders nostalgia not as simple reminiscence but as an urgent, dream-charged plea for refuge and transcendence.

Urban Playgrounds VI - ink on paper. Size: 52 x 62, 5 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000

Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

A low horizon bisects the sheet, framing a dreamlike liminal space where childhood’s fleeting safety meets the promise—and peril—of flight and escape. A lone child, rendered in warm, confident line, drifts alongside the spectral contours of a propeller plane, its fuselage and industrial hardware traced in cold, dashed strokes. Terziev’s meticulous stippling animates both figure and void, lending wonder to the boy’s expression even as the ghost-like airplane looms. In this elegiac tableau, Urban Playgrounds VI distills nostalgic longing and the urge to transcend the urban grind into a quiet meditation on memory, imagination, and the unreachable beyond.

Urban Playgrounds VII - ink on paper. Size: 52, 2 x 51, 2 cm, 2000, Anton Terziev

Photo: © the artist. Courtesy of the artist

Part of Light House And The Storm exhibition, Bath, UK, 2000

Last shown at Urban Playgrounds solo exhibition, DaDa Culture Bar, Sofia, 2016

Anton Terziev’s Urban Playgrounds VII (ink on paper) juxtaposes a spirited child figure against ghost-like, dashed outlines of cars and signage, forging a stark tension between personal memory and urban order. His precise stippling and varied hatching lend warmth to the boy while rendering the vehicular forms as cold, schematic intrusions. A strong horizontal divide marks the fragile boundary between the “safe” realm of childhood and the encroaching dystopian cityscape. The work poignantly evokes nostalgia’s delicate refuge amid the city’s relentless logic.

Urban Playgrounds изложба, DADA Culture бар, София, 2016

фото: Станислав Беловски