His pictures make you don’t want to close your eyes, for they might just somehow leach as a fairytale mirage in the haze of a hot summer day. It looks like you are walking in the fields and the sounds from the song of the reapers transform into the image of a woman. The woman has been worshipped into the watercolors of Lyuben Pashkulski where traditional Bulgarian past, Renaissance and the modern age all live in harmony. The woman’s lips are a blossomed rose bush, her eyes are deep as water and the human soul can be seen as a reflection into those. Sometimes they reflect sadness, sometimes light is conquered by darkness. However, this is a part of the picture of life – because, what is light, after all?

“Light is the addition to darkness, they are both related. You need darkness, in order to have light. A day needs a night. However, light is divine. God tries by any means to bring in light into the souls of human beings. Thus He gives them strength and a sense of their living. Darkness on the other hand scares people and they create their own light due to their will to escape. This is the natural zeal. Negativism carries bad thoughts,” says artist Lyuben Pashkulski.

He calls us on to look inside if we search for light. “People tend to think that problems are outside a person, but those are inside. So, you have to turn to yourself, if you want to solve a problem. We must say to ourselves that life is beautiful and bright. No matter the rain or the storm, once you’ve got that bright feeling of life, you don’t see the clashes, you eliminate them. That is the issue – a man has to be built up in a manner allowing him to reject anything bad and to attract what’s good,” the artist says. He adds that he was born on a treasure and this is not a metaphor – he stepped into this world in 1936 in the village of Rogozen, Northwest Bulgaria, where the biggest Thracian treasure ever has been found. The artist tells us more on his meeting with art:

“I used to draw small things yet during my early childhood. I had no brushes, I rolled a few layers of paper and cut it in a matter, resembling a brush. One can use anything to paint: fingers, mouth, nose… It’s not important what you use, but what you feel in your heart…”

After graduating the National Fine Arts School the artist continued his training with the National Academy of Art under the guidance of Prof. Alexander Poplilov. He then started with newspaper cartoons and continued with book illustrations, followed by monumental plastics. The man has received a St. St. Cyril and Methodius order for contribution to the development of Bulgarian art in the 20^th c. The artist has been presented in Holland, Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, the USA… Lyuben Pashkulski says that he found it hard to buy oil paints in the poor student years, so:

“I once again opted for watercolor as a child. They were cheaper. Well, I realized it was tougher – you can remove the oils. Put some more on it, scratch it away etc. And watercolor remains for good, no changes are possible. So I decided to jump and win over watercolor – I would interweave it into the paper, in the canvas. Then it says more than oils,” the artist claims.

Everyone, willing to get personally acquainted with the art of Lyuben Pashkulski may do so at his exhibition, unveiled on September 8 in the town of Varna, the Art Marconi Gallery…

English version: Zhivko Stanchev