ALEXI NACHEV | FLIPPED PAGES
Exhibition of illustrations, prints and drawings to mark 50 years of the artist's creative journey
2–21 June 2026
Exhibition opening: 2 June 2026 (Tuesday), 6:00 pm, Academia Gallery
1 Shipka Street, Sofia
In my childhood, long before I saw television, the book was my window to the imaginary world in which I wanted to live. In this world, I could travel between the past and the present, meet great heroes, participate in risky adventures in distant countries with exotic names.
In my desire to preserve those unforgettable moments, I tried to materialise them with coloured pencils in the sketchbook. The imaginary places were more interesting and more real than the surrounding reality, and on the white pages my versions of dramatic moments and impressive characters have been coming to life.
For me, words were a key, and the image gave flesh and blood, and breath and pulse to the story.
Looking back, I am still excited about what a diverse world can emerge to life on a white sheet of paper. Now, I use more than coloured pencils to make this world real, although sometimes even one line is enough.
Before you are the pages of the books I have illustrated, the pages of the sketchbooks where I have explored the figure, the sheets of the graphic series in which I experiment.
And since I have spent a lot of time at sea and below sails, I can express it figuratively: before you are the flipped pages of the ship's log of my journey as an artist.
And the sailing continues ...
Alexi Nachev
Alexi Nachev (b.1951, Sofia, Bulgaria) graduated from the Iliya Petrov National High School of Fine Arts, and then from the Department of Illustration and Book Layout (today Department of Book, Illustration, Printed Graphics) at the National Academy of Art, under Prof. Petar Chuklev and Prof. Vladislav Paskalev. His graduation work "Ukrainian Folk Tales" was published in 1979 by Narodna Mladezh Publishing House. In the period 1985–1990, he worked as full-time assistant professor in the Department of Drawing of the National Academy of Art.
Nachev works in the field of printmaking, drawing and illustration. In the 1980s, he collaborated with periodicals and leading Bulgarian publishing houses and published many books for children and adults. He actively participated in the artistic life in Bulgaria and abroad. In the USA, he has illustrated over 20 children's books for established US publishing houses.
Since 1990, he has been living and working in the USA. He has taught at art colleges, including Savannah College of Art and Design, University of the Arts in Philadelphia and Maryland Institute College of Arts in Baltimore. He is Professor Emeritus at Delaware College of Art and Design, where he has led the programme in Illustration for twelve years.
Solo exhibitions by Alexi Nachev have been presented in a number of art museums, cultural institutions and art galleries, including his retrospective exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (2013). The artist has won awards from national exhibitions, competitions and international forums.
Works of his are possession of museums and private collections in Bulgaria and the USA.
For the artist and teacher Alexi Nachev, it is natural to realise the exhibition Alexi Nachev. Flipped Pages at the Academia Gallery as an emotional connection with the institution that built him as an artist, and as a memory of his artistic youth.
The exhibition will be opened by Alexi Nachev and the art historian Filip Zidarov.