A practice of slow looking.

Rosen Markovski (b. 1962, Plovdiv) is a Bulgarian painter and sculptor whose work moves between abstraction and the human figure. Early studies in the Sofia academy were followed by years in Paris, where the long shadow of Picasso and Matisse first entered his vocabulary and never quite left it.

His paintings are made slowly — layered, scraped, partially obliterated, then found again. The palette stays close to the ground: black, charcoal, ochre, burnt orange, the occasional bone white. Sculpture entered the practice in 2005 as a way of staying with the figure when the figure refused the canvas.

He has exhibited in Bulgaria, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and across the Balkans. Works are held in private and institutional collections including the National Gallery, Sofia and the Sofia City Art Gallery.