Articles From the Experts

Jubilee 50th Auction of Enakor Auction House – “BULGARIAN NAÏVE ARTISTS”, 8 October 2026

At the jubilee 50th auction of “Enakor”, devoted to contemporary Bulgarian naïve art, Rosen Rashev – Roshpaka is represented by the largest number of works – more than 50. The auction corpus does not exhaust all the themes in the artist’s oeuvre, but it brings together works from his early period – from 1991 to 2014 – which allow us to consider some of his enduring themes, subjects and techniques

In the paintings from the group “Family and Childhood”, Roshpaka shows the most universally human and at the same time the most intimate part of his world. In these works the home, the mother, the child, the couple and the family are presented as signs of closeness and memory. In “The Soul of My Family” the family image is rendered almost as a family tree or a domestic totem. The large central many-headed figure contains within its body a house with a yard, while around it gravitate a bird-fish, a child figure, side heads, a strange rocket on wheels – as if the family were not simply a group of people, but an entire being composed of home, memories, relatives, animals and an invisible “soul”. “Childhood Memory” is palpably handcrafted: the figure of the child upon the animal is made of stitched hessian, with a rough, relief-like, almost woven-knitted silhouette. Here memory is not smoothly painted, but “dug out” of the material – like something left from a village house, a sack, a rug, a yard.

In the drawing “Mother” the subject is reduced to utmost sign-like clarity: a huge maternal figure, a small child figure, a heart, a moon. It is almost a pictogram of maternal protection. “The Kiss” and “Two Amid the Waves”, in turn, transform the couple into a single two-headed or two-bodied sign – love is not narrated psychologically, but shown as fusion, touching, a shared voyage. In this group Roshpaka introduces the viewer into his naïve universe through the closest human themes – the mother, childhood, love, the home – but turns them into personal myths, spoken through stitch, line, sign and a simple, almost childlike visual language.

In the works from the group “Christian Themes”, Roshpaka does not follow canonical iconography, but translates familiar biblical and New Testament subjects into his own personal naïve language. In “Adam and Eve” from 2006, the first human beings are placed on either side of the tree with the apple in an extremely simplified scheme – without dramatic action, almost as a primordial sign of the beginning of humankind. In the later “Adam and Eve” from 2012, the same subject is more condensed and more austere: the white appliquéd figures, the black background, the serpent and the heart-shaped signs on the bodies turn the Fall into a brief, powerful formula for the human being, love, temptation and trial.

In the drawings “Entry into Jerusalem”, the Gospel subject is told as a childlike processional scene in the manner of Lika Yanko – Christ on a donkey, his followers, a city, trees, stars and a fine line which turns the sacred event into an intimate human narrative. “At an Examination with Grandpa God” is particularly characteristic, because it replaces strict theological distance with trusting folk closeness: the encounter with “Grandpa God” resembles judgement, examination and ordinary conversation at the same time. In “The Communicating Angel”, this closeness becomes still more immediate – the blue angel casts a playful, mischievous glance at the flanking faces, as if truly taking part in communication between the visible and the invisible world. In “St George and the Dragon”, the Christian images continue to move between parable, childlike sign and folk tale. In these works, folk Christian faith is presented as a living visual language – human, simple, stitched, inscribed and narrated as if the sacred could appear very close to the human being.

In the works from the group “Rituals and Folk Christianity”, the Christian element in Roshpaka’s art leaves the clearly biblical scene and moves into the sphere of ritual, vision and domestic faith. In “The Flight of the Souls”, the white human figures float through space in all directions in a strange, almost dance-like image of transition – singly, in pairs or in threes. “Archangel” has the body and face of an owl, recalling Athena’s owl of wisdom. The heavenly guardian has been turned into a stitched domestic icon made of fabric, hessian and thread, around which houses and small human figures are arranged – as if the angel protects the concrete home and the human community. In “Heavenly Ritual”, “Sunny Meadow” and “Welcoming the Chart”, earthly and heavenly beings take part in strange ritual actions: gathering, welcoming, passage, movement around a sign, a body or a heavenly chariot.

The most striking work in the group is “The Hand That Helps Everyone”. The large pale hand, stitched onto a red woven ground among human figures, heads, animals and signs, may be read through its affinity with votive practices surrounding miracle-working icons. Iconographically, it echoes the pieces of cloth onto which votive silver plaques are sewn, bearing images of a hand, a foot, an eye, a child or another sign of the plea and of the help received. The connection is convincing because meaning and technique coincide: help is “stitched” as a thing, as a gift, as a votive offering. Here Roshpaka’s folk Christianity appears at its most material – as faith that can be touched, sewn on, carried and made to leave a trace.

In the paintings from the group “Fantastical and Fairy-Tale Works”, Roshpaka most freely unfolds his personal mythopoetic world. Here the images do not obey the logic of reality, but the logic of the fairy tale, the dream and childhood imagination. In “The Deer that Led Towards Happiness”, the animal is at the same time memory, guide and sign of a path – a creature that leads the human being towards a desired, almost miraculous place. In “The Tamed Dragon”, by contrast, the frightening has been disarmed through childlike closeness: the dragon is no longer an enemy, but a pet – a tame creature included in the world of people and play. The most interesting works in this group are “Animals in the Heavens”, “Fairy Tale”, “Friends” and “Tales of St George and the Dragon”. There animals fly, swim, ride, converse or turn into strange companions of the human being. St George and the dragon are not presented as a solemn heroic confrontation, but as a tale from folk storytelling, in which the dragon, the horseman, the princess, the unicorn, the birds, the fish and the churches inhabit one and the same enchanted world. The fantastical in Roshpaka’s work does not flee from the human – it expands it, showing a world in which fear can be tamed, the animal can become a friend, and the heavens – a place of play, journeying and happiness.

In the works from the group “Animals”, Roshpaka shows one of the most recognisable aspects of his world. His goats, dogs, cockerels and sparrows are not inhabitants of the village yard, but fairy-tale beings – they have individual character, human presence and behaviour. In “The Kind Goat and her Kid”, the large animal protects the small one with its whole body, turning the simple animal scene into a sign of motherhood and care. In “Dog on a Clear Day” we have an example of Roshpaka’s three-dimensional paintings. The dog-doll is soft, pale, sewn with large stitches onto the canvas – like a domestic guardian or the memory of a childhood toy. “Little Goat” develops a similar motif, but in a much more contrasting and austere way – a white figure against a black field, funny and frightening at the same time, yet also trusting. Birds are Roshpaka’s favourite animals. In “The Clever Little Cockerel” the animal is presented as an independent portrait – important, concentrated, with a human gaze. In “Merry Adventures with the Yordanovs Sparrows” and “Sparrow Town”, Yordan Radichkov’s sparrows are represented. They form a community: they fly, play, carry signs, live among houses, trees, stars and moons. Here Roshpaka’s connection with the storytelling tradition becomes visible, as well as with that fairy-tale-parabolic world in which the animal may be a human double, a neighbour, a friend or the hero of a small comic story. In these works, the animal does not distance the human being from himself; on the contrary, it helps him see himself with greater simplicity, tenderness and warmth.

The collection also contains a somewhat lesser-known part of Roshpaka’s output – his abstract artworks combining oil paint, appliqué and stitched line. In them the artist abandons narrative in order to reveal the very construction of his “stitched” world. In “The Endless River” there are no figures, only the concentric movement of stitched lines forming meandering squares set one inside another. These lines turn the work into a path, a current, a circling movement, an inward entry and an outward return without beginning or end. “The Distant City” uses a similar structure of inscribed squares, but the red background and the small rectangular patches around the centre recall windows, houses, urban memory or the sign of a settlement seen from afar. These works show that in Roshpaka’s art abstraction is not a departure from his world, but its concentration: stitch, patch, contour, colour and repetition remain alone to carry the meaning of cyclical time in square form. Here the image approaches the wall-hanging, the map, the path or the ritual sign, while naïve “stitching” reveals itself as a simple but powerful plastic system.

Admirers of naïve art and connoisseurs of Rosen Rashev – Roshpaka will have the rare opportunity to see the artist in unusual fullness – through more than 50 works from his early period, in different techniques, themes and subjects, included in the jubilee auction of Enakor Auction House. Among them everyone will be able to discover their own Roshpak – the one of childhood and family, of angels and Grandpa God, of goats, dogs, cockerels and sparrows, of strange dragons and fantastical journeys, or of the pure stitched sign. This is precisely what makes the collection special: it offers an entire world, sewn together from memory, goodness, fairy-tale imagination, faith and thread.

Rossitsa Gicheva-Meimari, , PhD
Chief Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts and Design and member of the “Bulgarian-European Cultural Dialogues” Centre at New Bulgarian University

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Facebook group Hilife 2021 – Пост на Фейсбук група Хайлайф – https://www.facebook.com/HILIFE.BG/posts/%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%82-%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D1%85%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%B2-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0/10157558306710843/?locale=ar_AR Посетена на 3 септември 2026 г.