Harita Asumani - Classic Gentleman

Classic Gentleman is part of a series of five male portraits created in Genoa, Italy, in 2024 and presented as a solo exhibition during the summer of the same year at Little Bird Place Gallery in Sofia. Each portrait in the series is accompanied by the personal story of its respective figure.

The series is inspired by men who, at some point, left a strong emotional or psychological impression on me. Through memory, projection, and imagination, fleeting encounters are transformed into vivid reconstructed identities. Rather than depicting the real person, these portraits capture an internalized version shaped by attraction, emotional resonance, and subconscious idealization. The figures exist somewhere between reality and fiction — familiar, distant, and permanently suspended in memory.

Biography

Harita Asumani (b. 1992, Plovdiv, Bulgaria) is a visual artist based in Genoa, Italy. She holds a Master of Arts in Costume Design (2017) and a Bachelor of Arts in Stage Design (2015), both from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. A period of academic mobility at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (2014) marked a turning point in her practice, where portraiture emerged as a central concern.

Asumani's residencies and exchange projects have accompanied and informed the evolution of her work. Awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2017) upon completing her studies, she deepened her engagement with portraiture and line. Her participation in the bilateral art exchange Urban Mythologies, Plovdiv — Timișoara (2023), alongside artists from Romania and Bulgaria, reflects a more categorical and introspective shift — from the portrait of the other toward self-portraiture and autobiographical imagery. Her residencies also include Little Bird Place, Leshten (2020), and Via Pontica, Balchik (2014).

Her work explores the emotional dimensions of human experience through self-portraiture, tracing a path between personal introspection and broader social narratives. Recurring themes of freedom, eroticism, love, and play run through her practice.