Infinity and Symmetry - Music and Mathematics in the Paintings of Emma Yordanova

INFINITY AND SYMMETRY:
MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS IN THE PAINTINGS OF EMMA YORDANOVA
Curator: Dr. Rositsa Gicheva-Meymari
UniArt Gallery, New Bulgarian University, March 5 - March 30, 2026
Opening: March 5, 2026, 6:00 PM

The project aims to explore the concepts of infinity and symmetry, their various and interacting meanings and interpretations. Infinity - both as a mathematical, musical, and visual concept, and as an endless opportunity for exploration and development. Symmetry - also as a mathematical, musical, and visual concept, but also as a sense of beauty related to order, correct proportion, commensurability, and clean form. The project further investigates the intersections and overlaps between the three fields - painting, music, and mathematics, for example: mathematics in visual art and music, aesthetics in mathematics, synesthesia in the arts and sciences, etc.

The idea for the project was born in 2025 as a result of a report by art historian Dr. Rositsa Gicheva-Meymari on "Synesthesia in Science and Art" at the conference "Natural and Human Sciences: Connections and Interactions" at New Bulgarian University. The report presented the case of Emma Yordanova as an artist with musical-visual synesthesia and Henri Poincaré as a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher with probable graphemic-color synesthesia (chromesthesia).

The curatorial proposal to Emma was to attempt to represent some mathematical concepts or theories in painting, in a manner similar to how she represents music in her canvases. Emma has a connection to mathematics - she graduated from a mathematical high school in Ruse. Secondly, mathematics has always held a special place in her works - for example, her preference for geometric forms in brushstrokes, figures, compositions, etc. This preference seems characteristic of artists with musical synesthesia-ideesthesia such as Wassily Kandinsky and Vasil Ivanov.

In the exhibition, we present 40 acrylic paintings by artist Emma Yordanova, composing the visual text of this interdisciplinary synesthetic-ideesthetic project, which we named "Infinity and Symmetry," based on the mathematical concepts and theories that inspired Emma.