Author Claire-Louise Price
Talented artist and multimedia designer Paola Minekov has lived in London since 2008 and loves the capital’s vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The city’s contrast of the historic with the ultra modern energises and inspires her work.
Paola also draws on her artistic heritage from her native Bulgaria, where her family still live. Her father and mentor is the well known sculptor Ivan Minekov.
Paola fuses Bulgarian stylistics and artistic trends, which she studied in Sofia, with the contemporary London art scene, and the results are stunning.
‘I cannot emphasise enough the important role that networking has played in my career’, said Paola. ‘Each time I moved to a different country - I lived in Israel and The Netherlands before coming to the UK - I built a life anew. I did this by being open to making connections and meeting new people.Then, when I moved to London and started to network formally, my career really took off!’
Cityscapes of London
As well as creating opportunities to meet exciting people, networking has opened the doors to major artistic projects. Paola exhibited in the first ever Faberge Egg Hunt, decorated the sponsor’s elephant for the intu Elephant ParadeNational Tour, and led the creation of a student community mosaic mural at London’s Institute of Education.
‘I am really enthusiastic about the power of networking and am confident that IBA can help Bulgarian businesses make a bigger impact on a broader canvas,’ said Paola.
Paola hopes IBA Connect will also help young people nurture their personal and professional development by offering them an easy way of connecting with the right people, in any industry, who could help them at the beginning of their careers. One of Paola’s personal ambitions is to promote Bulgarian art at an international level and says,
‘I am confident that IBA will be brilliant at helping achieve this goal!’