Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva

Your artistic identity is built around the idea of being “astral sisters.” How did this shared creative language emerge between you, and what does it mean in your artistic practice?

The idea for our astral sisterhood initially came from the happy coincidence that we are both born on the same day. But not only do we share a birthday, but we also share very similar and often complimenting aesthetic interests, ideas and creative pursuits. The emergence of our shared creative language was sudden and mysterious, but very natural, bringing a spontaneous and casual creative dynamic between us ever since.

Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva | Traveller | 2025

Many of your works blur the boundary between dream and waking reality. How do dreams influence your visual narratives and the forms your characters take?

The work explores the shifting boundaries between memory and dream — spaces where perception falters and new realities emerge. We are interested in the creation of personal virtual worlds shaped by errors in seeing and remembering, transforming distortion into a generative creative act.

In this sense, the Dream influences our visual narratives as methods of seeing. In dreams, forms are allowed to shift, dissolve, and reassemble without resistance — and that fluid logic becomes the architecture of the images. We are drawn to the way a dream holds contradictions effortlessly: how a figure can be familiar and entirely other, how a space can feel known yet impossible.

When we create, we try to approach reality with that same loosened gaze. The dream world teaches us to trust the moment when something slips out of definition, when an image reveals more in its blur than in its clarity.

By letting dream-logic guide the work, we invite each image to exist between realities — where waking perception falters just enough for something deeper and uncertain to come through.

Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva | Horns | 2025

Your images often feature otherworldly figures that appear both human and ethereal. What do these beings represent in your symbolic universe?

The beings embody a Daemonic expression of the inner states that possess us. They represent the parts of ourselves that travel through unseen layers of perception —the inner wanderers who move ahead of conscious thought, whisperers of dreams, bearing fears and unfulfilled desires, as well as incorporeal mirror images of ourselves, a reflection of the endless inner metamorphosis.

They exist in the threshold between human presence and something more fluid, more ancient — a hum that moves beneath reality.

These figures are also mediators. They allow different realms to touch: the waking world, the dream world, the remembered, the imagined. When they appear in an image, they act as points of conjunction where colours, textures, and spaces begin to leak into one another. Through their presence, something hidden surfaces — a glimpse of the strange beauty that arises when familiar boundaries dissolve.

In essence, they are embodiments of transition: beings shaped by crossing, by movement, by the subtle merging of worlds. They stand for those quiet forces that guide perception from one reality into another, whispering the possibility that what we see is only one layer of a larger, shifting landscape.

Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva | In Dreams | 2025

The landscapes in your works feel inverted, surreal, or digitally re-imagined. How do you choose and transform these environments to shape the mood of your pieces?

The environment is a part of the Dream and as such is subjected to wild transformations and instability. The familiar gives way for the unknown to peak through in the inflection points with otherness, opening portals to other realms.

In this way, mood emerges from the merging itself. The surreal quality is not an imposed effect, but a natural result of worlds overlapping — a visual echo of how the unseen breathes through the everyday. The transformed environments become invitations into this layered reality, where the sense of place is both unstable and strangely resonant, as if glimpsed in a dream just before waking.

Could you describe the collaborative process between the two of you? How do your roles intersect, complement, or challenge each other?

Our collaborative process is very natural and spontaneous. It often feels like our visions belong to the same realm that we can channel effortlessly when we join creative forces. We both participate in all aspects of the process, always willing to exchange ideas and go in the direction that fits the project best. Working together is both inspiring and challenging because of our shared admiration of each other’s way of thinking and desire to keep up with the creative flow.

Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva | Rain Ritual | 2025

What emotions or states of mind are you hoping to awaken in viewers when they encounter your dream-creatures and surreal worlds?

Above all, we hope to evoke curiosity — a deep, lingering fascination with what cannot be fully named. The images aim to bring the viewer closer to the sublime and mysterious aspects of reality that flicker beneath the surface of their imagination. We aspire to shift their attention towards the mystical and unknown, and spark curiosity of the duality of their own nature, originating and intertwined with the collective space of dreams and symbols.

Milena Valkova, Elena Burudjieva | The Double | 2025

As a duo, how do you envision the evolution of your artistic world? Are there new themes, mediums, or directions you wish to explore next?

Our collaboration has unfolded intuitively, guided by a rhythm that feels organic, and we intend to continue following the path it reveals. Each of us brings her own artistic interests, and we are interested in finding the points where our practices meet and can grow together. One of our next goals is to create an audio-visual zine – a place where sound, image, and texture can merge into a single, drifting experience.