Born in Varna in 1981, Angelina, in spite of her young age, has many years of experience in art, design and metalwork. As a twelve-year-old, she began to study in the profession of design artist and she has remained faithful to her vocation.
She was a student first at the High School of Fine Art and Design in beautiful sunny Kazanlak, the capital of the Rose Valley, famous not only for the rose oil it produces more of than any other place in the world or for its June rose festivals, but also for the breath of its historical past, whose traces in the form of many Thracian settlements and necropolises with magnificent frescoes are considered to be among the most valuable historical artefacts of European culture. In 2000, Angelina was admitted to the Metal Design Department at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. In the Academy’s structure, this department is classified as applied arts and educates artists and designers with metal as their main medium. In 2004, Angelina received a Bachelor of Arts diploma under the direction of Prof. Dimitar Deltchev (the NAA undergraduate studies take four years). Currently, she is continuing her studies at the same university and is completing her master’s dissertation. In the Summer of 2006, as a holder of the Kultur Kontakt scholarship, Angelina attended the Salzburg International Academy of Fine Arts in the jewellery class under the direction of Prof. Johanna Dahm.
IIn her jewellery, Angelina Stoykova has so far used mainly aluminium, steel, Plexiglas and rubber. She clearly likes using rules and rhythms, for instance in pieces assembled without gluing or soldering, in a section of steel line without any cuts, like a knit piece,
or necklaces made of repetitive elements which can be undone and fastened at random.
Angelina says that she feels she is both an artist and a designer, and that both fields are combined in her work.
“I have never used amber in my work before, so this attempt was a completely new challenge for me. I can’t give any single specific reason for taking up this challenge, many factors weighed in. The diversity of possibilities which amber offers the artist and the impressive topic are only a fraction of the reasons for my interest in it. I wanted to present the value of amber in an original way and I hope I have managed to achieve such an effect.”
Thanks to the 2007 edition of the Amberif Design Award (Elektronos) Competition, amber has gained a new ambassador, this time in Bulgaria: Angelina Stoykova has found the Gold of the North to be so inspiring that she decided to include it in the group of her favourite materials
