Preslav Kostov (b. 1998) is a London-based painter who graduated with a BA from Leeds Art University in 2020, and completed his MA at the Royal College of Art in 2023. He was the recipient of The Elizabeth Greenshields Award in 2021 and 2023, and is an elected member of The Contemporary British Portrait Painters Society.
His work investigates the instability of the figure within contemporary image culture. Through processes of accumulation, erasure, and distortion, his paintings occupy a space between observation and invention, where bodies are partially seen, misremembered, or withheld. Recurring motifs, often drawn from genre scenes of leisure or intimacy, serve less as narrative anchors than as frameworks for tension. In Kostov’s hands, these familiar settings are estranged and rendered porous through painterly interference. Figures become traces of gesture, photographic memory, and perceptual slippage. Across blurred registers and fractured grounds, the work sustains ambiguity as a structural condition, resisting clarity and instead opening space for affect, distance, and doubt.
Solo exhibitions include; Soft Focus, Tara Downs, New York (2025); Between the five wells, Tara Downs, New York (2024). Group exhibitions include; Ester Art Fair, Tara Downs Gallery, Miami (2025); Felix Art Fair, Tara Downs Gallery, Los Angeles (2025); NADA Miami, Tara Downs Gallery, Miami (2024); Notes Toward a Shell, Tara Downs, New York (2024); Softer, Softest, Guts Gallery, London (2024); Beauty in chaos, Hew Hood Gallery, London (2024); The Arcadian Dream, Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2024); The sum of our parts, Swivel Gallery, New York (2024); ArtSG, Gallery Vacancy, Singapore (2024); New Now, Guts Gallery, London (2023); Manifest, SixtySix London, London (2023); Touch-a-touch-a-touch-me, Berntson Bhattacharjee, London (2023); From The Cloud, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Skin Deep, Studio West Gallery, London (2023).