Blood trickles, as man pierces performer's skin with curved needle, threading clear suture beneath skin. Performer is unflinching, quietly approving. Man punctures again, audience holds breath. An ordinary day in the life of Bulgarian contemporary artist Boryana Rossa.

Both Boryana's parents are life-long engineers, involved in robotics and nuclear work, although her mother, upon pondering whether to attend art academy in her youth, decided "mathematics is as much creative as art". Boryana's stewing in this family setting impacted her immensely, for her art is fuelled by technology. Her communist-era upbringing, when artists were greatly valued, nurtured her, too. A creator since childhood, she started with traditional beginnings at the art academy, where the curriculum geared in preparing artists to adorn the grand communist buildings with murals, yet as the 80s closed, so, too, the need for muralists. Many of her fellow students continued onto painting churches, meanwhile Boryana's interests leaned opposingly. She began experimenting with technological tools, photography and video, where she liked the aspect of creating something small and inexpensive, and easily blowing it up for size and impact.

Over time her work has spanned many mediums, showing how "creativity can be in any field of human activities". Her muse is ignited by female issues, collective activities, the communication between art and science and biology.

Her resume is impressive, a master's in public art from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia and two years spent in America achieving a MFA in electronic arts at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. During which she curated at the Bio Art Initiative. In 2007 she returned to Sofia and is now curating the visual arts programme at The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate.

Searching for Boryana on Yahoo!, I find 1420 results; she is very active in the contemporary art scene, and collaborates with people from all over the world. Her most prominent partner is her husband of seven years, Oleg Mavromatti. The couple met at a video festival and have since created memorable performances and films, including participating at Trickster Theater in New York. Oleg, respectively, is in the same creative genre, and is even prosecuted for his art in homeland Russia, and therefore a political refugee in Bulgaria.

Some of Oleg's and Boryana's significant performances together titled Suture Series involved a nude Boryana sitting on a gold tinted mirror, with Oleg medically stitching her arms and legs together, which Boryana explains as symbolising "closing herself into one cell", a cell that has not yet been specialised and divided, alluding to overcoming social divisions; gender, race, education or finance. Or, Boryana sutured to a mirror, a representation of "trying to overcome the borders between" the real world and the untouchable virtual world. Everything Boryana creates has meaning and a message, and she dismisses any shock value motives. The short performances are documented on film, after which the sutures are cut, since they are not intended as body decor, as one may assume, the way piercings, tattoos or body modification are, of which Boryana has none. Although when I notice a fresh red mark on her hand, laughingly she says it is from her cat. The suturing is not deep and apparently leaves no enduring marks, she describes to me over tea one windy day. All her explanations, casually brimming with historical information.

A prestigious distinction for her work came about when one of her videos was selected for the permanent collection of the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. Chosen for the cover of the exhibition, Boryana's video Celebrating the Next Twinkling shows the faces of two women shifting between gaping screams, laughter and fighting, amidst a disturbing soundtrack, a take on female hysteria.

On the topic of the classical arts she says, "Without having this heritage of all this art that happened before me, I wouldn't be what I am now." She enjoys the classics as art of their respective epochs, but dislikes current artist imitating the old, "because they don't take part in social life" and believes they are irrelevant in today's world of aggressive advertising and television, with which art has to compete, and reflect. "The mission of an artist is to be engaged in everything, and to comment on current aesthetics and on the most problematic questions or issues in society. Also it is important that the artist has a political position," and does not just create frivolities for money, she says. Because the exchange of capital from pretty art impacts society whether the artist is aware of it or not, she says. Boryana herself is not fully funded by her art; her income comes from curating, freelance writing, video editing, translating and lecturing.

She describes how Bulgaria does not have permanent contemporary art collections and no published books featuring this genre by Bulgarian artist. "The past 17 years are undocumented with no infrastructure that can collect and catalogue" and sell this art. Her wish that there would be a shop where these sorts of things are sold has fuelled her contribution in something called Fetishista, a contemporary art fair occurring this February 14, which is also a fundraiser for the visual arts programme. Artist compilations, music, postcards and rare magazines are amongst some of the items that can be purchased.

Boryana's future holds many more exhibitions, including another Bio Art in New York, titled Mirror of Faith (Corpus Extremus (Life+), challenging the topic of genetic predisposition and spirituality. Boryana plans to create well into her elderly years. Meanwhile we can join her in celebrating her self-appointed Robot Day together with the artist group Ultrafuturo, for a glimpse into her androidian art fetish, and Fetishista Fair, too. Contemporary art is at hand.

The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate
[www.redhouse-sofia.org]
15 Lyuben Karavelov Str
February 14: Fetishista Art Fair. Free admission, wine bar, 2.00pm to 10.00pm
[www.roboriada.org/boryana]