Bulgarian Demon Chasers. Photography: Aron Klein. Source
“Kukeri is an ancient pagan ritual practiced annually across the Balkan mountain regions where local men wear carved wooden masks of beasts’ faces and hang heavy bells around their waists as they perform arcane dances,” says London-based photographer Aron Klein. The Kukeri Project is Aron’s magical and dreamlike series that consists of hypnotic images of large men in carnivalesque costumes, posing menacingly in the wintry Bulgarian mountains.
Currently on view at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, California is artist Akira Beard’s fantastic looking solo exhibition, “Circles: A Creative Journey Into the Human Condition.”
Akira explains the exhibition: “Circles is a body of work inspired by a moment of realization I had during a period of loss. As I planned what actions to take with starting a new life I realized how I had stood in this spot several times before. A new beginning from the point of a new ending. Existence seemed an endless series of circles with gaining things only to lose them eventually and inevitably. It felt senseless to continue in the same direction knowing the outcome ahead. Asking myself if there were an alternative, it was as if a fork in the future’s road suddenly appeared. One path I was all too familiar with. In these difficult moments with involuntary life change, I had always dealt with it by running away. Denial, coping, distraction, and so forth. The other path was unknown. I had never been down it. Its direction was not away, but towards. Desperate enough, I went down this road less traveled. My life has never been the same since. The artworks presented in this show are just some of the pictures made from the journey on it.”
The exhibition will be on view until August 3rd, 2018.
