In September 2024 the H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_E_R_S took part in ‘focus UK’ in the nonsofia gallery & archive. Sofia. Bulgaria

‘focus uk’ featured work by: hans hancock, ian boutell, jeremy morgan, karen loader, mary yacoob, patrick morrissey, Patrick o’donnell, philip cole, stig evans and tom hackney.

exhibition dates: 25 september-17th november 2024

a number of the artists from the uk were able to make the journey to Sofia for the private view. it was a wonderful experience to connect with georgi and his guests at the gallery. the artists had an opportunity to discuss their work and hopefully lasting friendships were established.

georgi dimitrov writes the following words in his introduction to the exhibition :

british artists patrick morrissey and hanz hancock joined company fifteen years ago, drawn together by their shared interest in systems art and in particular, the legacy of british systems artists as peter lowe, bridget riley, jeffrey steele, kenneth and mary Martin. their multidisciplinary output also references the artistic tendencies and characteristics of the international movement of the mid 20th century in europe and america and seeks to develop this interest in a contemporary context. to this end, they established the online curatorial and editorial project, saturation point, which is based at their studio complex in deptford, london. in addition to their own artistic endeavours, they curate exhibitions internationally and also in their project space, with their regular sunday salon events, focussing on the work of artists with a non-objective, systems and reductive geometric tendency. they also publish essays and general reviews, texts relevant to this area of artistic practice. in 2017 patrick and hanz were invited by bulgarian artist/curator georgi dimitrov, founder of nonsofia, to orthogonal16: international forum for constructive art, sofia. they participated in the exhibition of the forum and delivered a lecture as part of the presentations module of the symposium. a mere friendship between both platforms has emerged since then, resulting in the ongoing collaboration, presenting the work of ten contemporary british artists. earlier this year saturation point hosted the fourth edition of the bulgarian geometric export at their studio space in deptford.