From 9th till 20th December 2009, for 12 days, the Art Center RG-21 became an Open Studio of artists’ tandem Maria Varbanova and Valery Varbanov. In this prestigious Bulgarian art gallery in the town Ruse, Maria and Valery created art alive – for the viewers in the gallery, and from all over the world. The artists showed to the wide public the entire creative process and specifics of their unique collaboration. The artistic process of Maria and Valery has been live-streamed 9 hours a day, in a real time on Internet.

“Our show was submitted to the theme “The Forbidden Fruit –Temptation”. On the opening we exhibited 5 uncompleted paintings and for 2 weeks we completed them. We painted with ordinary brush and air-brush, solo and in collaboration; we made multimedia projections of our video-art products. During the show we also made two body-art photo-sessions, projecting our artworks on the bodies of dancers and shooted these compositions in photo and video, thus we experimented in combining the visual art with dance".

Two days of the show Maria devoteed in painting one of the 2 Still-Lifes ordered from the Government of Oman trough an English art-dealer for the Villa of Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said al Said, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Although this Still Life was out of the theme of Show Maria ought to make it due to nearing dead-line for the order, furthermore - the aim of this show was to intrigue viewers with the creating-process itself, not with the subject matter of paintings.

         During this artists’ presentation in Art Center RG-21 were also exhibited artworks by Maria and Valery Varbanov – paintings (acrylic on canvas), and art-photography from their series “The Forbidden Fruit”. This exhibition contained “solo” artworks by both artists, as well as artworks created in collaboration. Valery Varbanov showed large-size-paintings – abstract compositions with realistic elements – interpretations on the theme. Maria Varbanova exhibited Still Life paintings – her minimalistic compositions with apples painted in Photorealistic style. The artists also showed their hyper-realistic paintings created in collaboration, as well as their art photography – projections of apples on nude body.

            For the show has been announced a detailed Program/scenario with indicated dates and hours of all artists’ activities – what will be done and when, as well as the time for interviews and themes for discussions. 

During this Reality Show the doors of Art Center RG-21 were open for the viewers. Art-lovers, students, artists and journalists were able to watch artists’ creative process and talk with the artists during the indicated in the Program time. 

            The Online Open Studio ended with a Gala cocktail and а short Multimedia Dance Spectacle. This Gala was also an opening of the Exhibition of Maria and Valery Varbanov in Art Centre RG-21, in Ruse.
            The wines for the Gala were provided by Edoardo Miroglio – the biggest Italian investor in Bulgaria, and are produced in his Wine-cellar in Elenovo, Thracian region, Bulgaria. www.emiroglio-wine.com
            On the Conclusion of Show Maria and Valery also presented their “Wine Project” projecting a Multimedia Slide-Show of art-photo-session of EM wines.
            They also made projection of the best photos resulted from the body-art photo-sessions they made during the Reality Show.