Ivan Petkov was born on 08.06.1976 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. He graduated from The National Art Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria specialising in Wood-sculpture in 2000 and from the Art University in Linz, Austria, specialising in Sculpture-Inter-medial Space in 2008.
He has been involved in numerous exhibitions and projects, amogst which: A-EYE 2014: An exhibition of art and nature-inspired computation, Victoria Art Center, Bucharest, Romania (2014); Use At Your Own Risk, ARS Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria (2013); Humanimal, National Museum of Natural History, Sofia, Bulgaria (2013); (Dis)harmonija, Kibla Galery, Maribor, Slovenia (2013);Vib boX, sound installation on wheels, at Ukradená Galerie, Linz, Austria (2013).
He is the winner of 1st Prize at the International Fine Arts Symposium Forma Viva Maribor, Slovenia (2011) and 1st Prize at the International Videoart Exhibition Dupini Like, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria (2013).
"In his work Ivan Petkov often uses means of expression, commonly considered to be new media - not in a belief, that artworks created in this way automatically open new perspectives, nor with an arrogant attitude towards them, wherein they are reduced to a passive vehicle of extrinsic concepts. Assuming that even a printed book or a mechanical meat grinder must have been perceived as unseen novelties in the time of their invention, he places them in different cultural and technological contexts and assigns them new meanings in contemporary social practices."