site.btaRosen Rashev-Roshpaka Presents His “Sunny World” of Bird-People, Humans and Animals

Rosen Rashev-Roshpaka is presenting paintings and drawings in his solo exhibition “Sunny World.” The show opens on March 2 at 6:00 p.m. and will run until March 18 at Paris Gallery in Sofia. The exhibition can be viewed both on site at the gallery and online on its website, the hosts said.

“The title of the exhibition clearly reflects its character. This is the artist’s sunny world, which he always depicts in his paintings, because that is his true essence and his own reality. And it is entirely real, because through the works Roshpaka creates, this reality comes alive, touches and heals human souls,” said Nadya Pavlova of the gallery.

Bird-people, humans, animals and a variety of fantastical characters interact in this sunny world, rendered in warm, bright colours that are never gloomy. Large, rounded houses gather their inhabitants, who curiously peer out of the windows; whimsical creatures ride bicycles; and even entire towns of small houses appear, filled with sparrows, she noted.

According to Pavlova, family and love are once again the main driving forces in Rashev’s work. Indeed, she added, no sunny world could exist without love and warmth between people.

Rashev-Roshpaka was born in 1970 in the northwestern city of Vratsa and graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in Sofia in 1989. He lives and works in his hometown. With a smile, his works tell stories of family and love, of animals and people, of “Grandfather God” and biblical events.

The Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Jagodina, Serbia, holds a collection of more than 80 paintings by Rashev, who has received numerous prestigious awards over the years. It was through the Serbian museum’s collection that the artist was presented in a major exhibition at the Sofia City Art Gallery in 2011. Another internationally significant institution with a collection of more than 35 of his works is the Art Centre Hugo Voeten in Belgium.