Sofia Budakova
Ashes of Burned Hopes, 2025
Oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm
Time Capsule series
May 1940. Britain stands on the brink, and Dunkirk has become a trap for hundreds of thousands of soldiers. In the artist’s box lie the silent witnesses of this moment: a crumpled map of the disaster, Churchill’s favorite champagne, and the ash of a cigar scattered over Dunkirk, like the ashes of burned hopes…
The painting is more than a still life. It is a portrait of will in the face of catastrophe, where the tools of thought and spirit can turn the course of history […]
Sofia Budakova
Three Pearls, 2025
Oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm
Time Capsule series
November 22, 1963. Dallas. Time frozen at 12:30. A torn necklace and the objects that became the silent witnesses of this drama, which changed the course of the 20th century. Each object in this composition is evidence, a fragment of the larger mosaic of a crime that still keeps its secrets…
There is no politics here, only the silence of things that have seen it all […]
Sofia Budakova
Red Pencil, 2025
Oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm
Time Capsule series
1937. It seems the country is tensely preparing for change, where every word, every line carried weight, and a printed page could change the course of the day. In the artist’s box are the objects in which culture and everyday life always coexist with the public agenda: a Georgian carpet, a sign of tradition and hospitality, and the newspaper with red-pencil marks.
Memory is preserved in details, and any “underline” on the page is a mark of human history […]
Sofia Budakova
Voice of a New Day, 2026
Oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm
Time Capsule series
1923. Ankara. The empire is not yet dead, but it can no longer speak in its former voice. In the “artist’s box” a suspended moment of a great transition. An Ottoman carpet at the base of the composition lies like memory: its patterns still preserve the grandeur of the past, but they no longer determine the path.
This is an archive of memory, not relics of former power but the breath of the moment when the country irrevocably chose its path. Here the will of a man is captured, whose voice became the beginning of a new day and still sounds in history […]
Sofia Budakova
Single Earring, 2026
Oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm
Time Capsule series
August 31, 1997. Paris. The Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Headlights. The screech of brakes. Silence. In the ‘artist’s box’ are gathered the silent witnesses of a time when monarchy acquired a human face.
This is not simply a portrait of a princess. It is a trace of a time when an entire generation felt closeness to what seemed unattainable […]