Gergana Zhelyazkova

I never planned to become an artist. Painting found me at a moment when life felt loud, heavy, and slightly out of control.

I started painting during the first COVID lockdown. At the time, I was already feeling stretched thin, stress at work, chaos in my personal life, and then… bam. A global pandemic on top of everything else. Like many people, I suddenly found myself trapped between four walls with an overthinking brain that simply refused to switch off.

So I picked up a canvas.

Actually, that is not entirely true. I picked a big canvas.

On a very windy day in Zurich, I found myself walking down Bahnhofstrasse in heels while carrying a 120 x 100 cm canvas that the wind was aggressively trying to turn into my first “canvas flight” experience. At some point I genuinely felt I might take off before the painting career even started. Somehow, I managed to wrestle the canvas into a very small Uber and made it home before achieving liftoff. Quite an iconic start, honestly.

What started as curiosity quickly became therapy, escape, obsession, and peace all at once. For hours, I could completely disconnect from the real world and focus only on colors, texture, movement, and emotion. I was watching painting tutorials almost hypnotized, endlessly admiring the work of abstract artists and slowly finding my own style somewhere between imperfection and freedom.

Today, I create contemporary acrylic paintings that explore the boundaries between landscape and abstraction. Each piece is built through layers of heavy texture, capturing the interplay of light, earth, water, and atmosphere.

My work draws inspiration from the natural world, the Swiss mountains, coastal horizons, changing skies, and the quiet emotional impact of nature itself. Using palette knives and mixed media techniques, I build textured surfaces that invite both touch and contemplation.

I have always been drawn to abstract modern art, probably because of my love for interior design, contemporary aesthetics, and minimalistic spaces. I love art that creates atmosphere without screaming for attention. Art that leaves room for interpretation. Art that makes you feel something before you even understand why.

Every painting becomes a unique journey of texture and colour, designed to bring warmth, depth, calm, and character into living spaces. My paintings are emotional, intuitive, and deeply personal. They are not created to be “perfect.” They are created to create feeling.

In a strange way, painting taught me how to slow down in a world that constantly pushes us to speed up.

And honestly… for someone working in the structured corporate world, throwing paint at a canvas felt like a very elegant form of rebellion.