Yoana Tuzharova - PRESENT

Galerie Gilla Lörcher is delighted to present the second solo exhibition by Bulgarian artist Yoana Tuzharova in Berlin.

In the exhibition P R E S E N T, Yoana Tuzharova confronts us with the traces we leave behind every day between the digital and analog worlds: smudges and swipe marks that appear on smartphone screens while chatting, emailing, scrolling, shopping, and liking. The artist works with various media here: photography, print, installation, and light works.

“These painterly yet automated gestures are traces of our everyday lives, or rather: traces of the interface between the digital and physical worlds. At the same time, they are the origin of digitality, where decisions are made in fractions of a second with just a tap of the thumb,” writes curator Nantje Wilke about Tuzharova’s works.

The installation “data monument” “translates virtual structures into an analog space: the walls and niches, scaled to the artist’s physical dimensions, are open to multiple interpretations. While at first glance it is clearly a façade, the next moment we find ourselves in front of a display window in which what lies behind is staged within a specific context. From the other side, one finds oneself in an interior space decorated with ornate tiles that could resemble a thermal bath—that is, a place of luxurious refuge. The smooth, hygienic-blue surface of the tiles stands in stark contrast to the origin of the motif, which lies in the grease marks and dirt residues, lint, and cracks in the bacteria-laden glass of the smartphone display. The mimetic reflection of the forms extends endlessly in sacred arches, much like the ever-expanding parallel universe of the World Wide Web, which reflects the “real world,” distorts it, and then beams it back at us from screens.”

Short Biography

Yoana Tuzharova (born in 1986 in Russe, Bulgaria) is a visual artist. She currently lives and works in Cologne. She studied from 2005 to 2009 at the University of Arts in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria (Bachelor’s degree).

From 2013 to 2019, she studied sculpture and art in public spaces at the Münster Academy of Fine Arts and was awarded the title of “Master Student” in 2017 under Prof. Maik Löbbert and Prof. Dirk Löbbert. In 2021, the artist was awarded the “Förderpreis Junge Positionen NRW” by the Förderverein Unser Fritz 2/3 e. V., Herne. In 2021, she was also nominated for the “Junger Westen” art prize in Recklinghausen, and in 2022 she received the “GWK Art Prize” in Münster.

Her works have been exhibited at the following institutions, among others: Raketenstation, Insel Hombroich Foundation; KIT Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf; Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa, Kyoto, Japan; Gustav Lübcke Museum, Hamm; Kunstmuseum Celle with the Robert Simon Collection; MMIII Kunstverein Mönchengladbach, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Wewerka Pavillon, Münster; Credo Bonum Gallery & Art Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria; Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, a division of the Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria; Lüdenscheid Municipal Gallery; Goch Museum and Moyland Castle Museum; and the Recklinghausen Art Hall.

Exhibition opening

May 1, 2026 | 12:00 PM–9:00 PM