In brief
From November 3 to 21, Serdica Gallery in Sofia hosted the solo show of Bulgarian artist Valka Parusheva, whose 26 textile artworks explore how layers of feeling and experience form perception. Parusheva’s pieces blend minimalism with geometric complexity, creating translucent colour fields from a distance while revealing pixel‑like details up close. The exhibition, built over two years, reflects on the warm human presence the artist wishes to convey.
Serdica Gallery in Sofia opened its doors on November 3 as it ushered in the solo exhibition “Layers” by Bulgarian textile artist Valka Parusheva, a show that is set to run until November 21. The 26 works in the display are entirely made from a special textile fabric in which each thread appears as a pixel when examined closely; from afar, the threads merge into translucent blocks of colour, evoking the layered nature of human consciousness and emotion.
Parusheva, born in 1969 in Sliven, graduated in artistic textiles from the Dimitar Dobrovich School of Applied Arts in 1988 and has worked in contemporary art, textiles and graphic design ever since. Her practice has earned her national recognition, including the UBA award in textiles at the Grass and Water National Exhibition in 2026 and accolades at the Dissonances and Sirak Skitnik National Exhibitions.
“I would like this exhibition to convey a sense of warm human presence and offer a purely aesthetic experience,” Parusheva told the gallery staff during the opening.
“I want viewers to feel, not just see, the gentle accumulation of layers that shape our perceptions of the world.”
The artist’s works aim to balance minimalism and compositional complexity, using geometric patterns that seem at once static and fluid. The close view of the textile threads invites the eye into a micro‑world, while the grander, blended colour fields encourage a more contemplative, distance‑derived experience.
Parusheva’s exhibition has already attracted attention from the Bulgarian artists’ community. She is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists, and her works are held in the union’s collections, as well as in galleries across Sliven, Yambol, and Ruse. Her art is also present in private collections domestically and abroad, testifying to its international reach.
The exhibition is also a fuller expression of Parusheva’s journey, which began with a residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2016. That overseas program helped broaden her techniques and introduced the micro‑thread approach that defines “Layers.” The blending of textile art with a conceptual investigation into consciousness sits at the heart of the show.
Visitors are invited to move through the gallery space and to experience the artworks from various distances, thereby engaging directly with the artist’s intended layered perception. As the show progresses, more viewers are being encouraged to pause, look closely, and then widen their perspective, discovering how the layers of texture, colour, and form unspool to reflect the accumulation of experience that defines our awareness.
With its running timetable set to close on November 21, “Layers” invites anyone interested in contemporary textile art and in the philosophical questions of perception to explore the serene yet complex tapestry on display at Serdica Gallery in Sofia.
