Biography & CV
Galina Chehirian was born in Tryavna, Bulgaria, a town famous for its school of iconography, wood carving tradition and architecture. The energy and material world there made her sensitive to artisan traditions early on. She graduated from the National Academy of Art in Sofia in 1981.
Her practice unfolds in the uncanny spaces between mediums and materials spanning wood, glass, canvas and paper.
Her sculptural work of the 1980s overflowed the bounds of form, embodying painting, found objects, and textiles.
In 1998, she founded Gali Studio in New York City, which gained a reputation as a leading studio for painted glass. The studio revived the old Verre Eglomise technique—developed in the Italian Renaissance—which yielded rich possibilities for the layered application of color and composition.
Her newest body of work in 2023 brings her practice of interruption and transfiguration into the realm of painting. Across multimedia canvases of wood, paper and acrylic, she assembles metaphysical landscapes that unsettle the boundaries between interior and exterior—appearing at once as maps of spaces and maps of the psyche.
Her paintings and monotypes convey a sense of opposition to near and distant horizons with fragmented motifs and a sense of duality, creating meditative harmonies through color and composition.
Solo Exhibitions (2018 - Present)
2018 Contrast Gallery, Sofia
2021 Prolet Gallery, Burgas
2021 City Art Gallery, Varna
2022 Arosita Gallery, Sofia
2023 Sredets Gallery, Ministry of Culture, Sofia
Selected Group Exhibitions (2019 - Present)
2019 Open Files, Plovdiv
2021 The Vessel Project in Rayko Alexiev Gallery, Sofia
2021 Plein Air Vrabevo
2022 Art and Resistance, Varna
2023 August in Art, City Art Gallery, Varna
2023 Le Papillon Gallery, Varna
Represented by
Jedite Gallery, New York, NY
Arrivee Gallery, Red Bank, NJ
Studio 41, Benicia, CA
Don Muller Gallery, Northampton, MA
Detroit Gallery, Detroit, MI
Red Sky Gallery, Charlotte, VA
Panache Gallery, Mendocino, CA
Christensen Heller Gallery, Oakland, CA
Skyline Gallery, Tucson, AZ
Bennet Galleries, Knoxville, TN
Jack Kellmer, Philadelphia, PA
Artforms, Guilderland, NY
Newman Gallery, Washington, DC
Burns Court Gallery, Sarasota, FL
Shapiro Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL
Prolet Gallery, Burgas, Bulgaria.
Le Papillon Gallery, Varna, Bulgaria
In the Collections of
National Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia City Gallery, Bulgaria
City Art Gallery, Varna, Bulgaria
City Art Gallery, Gabrovo
In the Private Collections of
Boeing Co, Seattle, WA
Stephen Fisher, Baltimore, MD
Aaron Owens, Philadelphia, PA
Boeing Co, Seattle, WA
Scott Robertson, Red Bank, NJ
Mardirossyan, Paris
Chris Horowitz, Washington, DC
Al Manahil, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Karl Kessler, Hallstatt, Austria
Terry Fisher, Washington, DC
Participation in Art Forums
2004 Morristown Art Museum Show
2004 Boston Art Museum Craft Show
2005 Baltimore ACC Show
2005 Atlanta Art Show
2006 Lexington Ave Armory, New York
2007 Madison Ave Armory, New York
2009 Baltimore ACC Show
2010 Westfield Spring Show
2011 Philadelphia Art Museum Show
2011 Sarasota American Art Marketing
2012 Lexington Ave Armory, New York
2013 Baltimore ACC Show
2014 Philadelphia Rosen Show
2016 West Palm Beach, FL
2018 Miami Art Show, FL
2019 Madison Ave Armory, New York