Moda Magazine (Modamag.com): What inspired you to become an artist?
Antonia: Actually, I cannot remember when I started painting. I do remember when I was born and I believe in reincarnation, so the moment I started painting must have been in some past life. My inspiration comes from within: from my love to see the usual in unusual ways. I suppose, the great achievements in every sphere of human endeavor also inspire me to compete and prove that I can do something similar in grandiosity.

Moda Magazine: How would you define art?
Antonia: Art for me is everything done with skill and love. Very often I try to explain to people what is the difference between art and craft. Suppose we have a painting reproduction done in a crafty and an artistic way. How to distinguish which copy of the original is the real worth? For an artist it is not difficult to pinpoint what a real professional does. You can examine the strokes, the fluidity of lines and the light attitude when the painting was made, despite that sometimes the subject could be childlike. In the craft version we find that lines will be stiff and adraid to say what they want to convey. So, the natural conclusion from this statement is that art is also everything bold, not affright to say what has to be stated, for art is the ultimate expression of creativity. A creative person cannot be slave because the occupation demands freedom and bravery. In our subconscious there is always the image of God as the ultimate creator and we try to mach his skill of creating the universe, but we don’t have to forget that we can become free in our activities the same way God is only if we develop the same qualities He has and one of them is purity. So, the natural conclusion from this statement is that art is also purity.

Moda Magazine: What caused you to make the move to the US?
Antonia: I find US a place with unlimited opportunities to reach as many people as possible. America is not one country. I see it as a world conglomerate, because people from all over the world have come to live here and that makes it so easy to reach people from all over the world and thru them the entire Earth.

Moda Magazine: How is US different from Bulgaria?
Antonia: The mental constitution of Bulgarian people is very different form the residents of US. Bulgaria is very conservative but a historically rich country. By visiting Bulgaria a person can experience a mixture of past and present, East and West cultures. There are places where people live like they had lived 200 years ago. There are cities where people use the best modern technology and cultural prosperity can offer, but the basic difference between US and Bulgaria is the scale of the countries. United States is a big country and everything inside its borders tries to mach the big scale, but Bulgaria is small and everything is much more secluded. If anybody wants to find untouched experience of peace, I think, that person can go and visit the undiscovered natural secrets of Bulgaria.

Moda Magazine: What makes your work unique?
Antonia: I think the time and thought I put into my paintings. They are my life. I create my own world on canvas and live there. If I had the opportunity to make the world of my paintings alive, I would like in a similar fashion to touch every corner and create every small dot in it. I am inspired by Vedic philosophy. Vedas are scriptures on which every nowadays science is based knowingly or unknowingly. It is also a code by which every person can warship God, live happily in this life and return back home back to Godhead in the end of life. Sometimes I do paintings, which have Eastern philosophy, but I use Western techniques and may be that is what makes my painting different.

Moda Magazine: What types of art do you work most often with?
Antonia: I do a lot of commission work like portraitures but my favorite is to just paint without worrying about anything and that grants my real success and makes me completely happy. I like to paint reality, which is difficult to be seen from the dimension we live in. It is like offering a rare gift to everybody who can see my paintings.

Moda Magazine: Is there a specific project that you are currently working on?
Antonia: I am working on a multimedia project at the moment, which is composed of 30 big canvases. They will be painted one after another like a film sequence. It is an idea coming from my background as a computer artist. The project is really interesting because it  joins two totally different types of media; fine art and digital film editing. People have done projects with a similar concept behind in the past but they use fine art to incorporate into computer artwork and I am trying to do the opposite.

Moda Magazine: What kind of plans do you have for the future?
Antonia: I have a plan to create a place where everybody can be really happy. There are truths about our existence people try to overlook and one of them is how exactly a person can be happy. We try all life to diminish unhappiness but because the knowledge of how to contra react it is missing, we are riding on the waves of healing and distress. Everybody has the right just to be happy and my intention is to share a discovery about how this works. As president of Balarama, Inc., which is nonprofit corporation for development of art and culture, along with my associates we are working on a project to build a base where people can be trained how to be reach tranquil by the means of art.

Moda Magazine: Who do you create art for (yourself, audience etc.)?
Antonia: I do art for me and for my heart, which is a dwelling of God. If He is satisfied, everybody is satisfied because He is in everybody’s heart. So, I actually paint for the audience. Or, maybe I am painting just because that is the best way to express myself.