Pathetic Stars

Cryptid Art Space presents

Pathetic Stars
An exhibition by Bogomil Bratoev

October 20 – November 1, 2025

…

Once upon a time

there was a lip

there was a tooth

saliva in strings

mixed with blood

she, the latch

a naked butterfly, hanging

like a strawberry in cobwebs

playing hide-and-seek

playing alone

in the classroom

locked in

…

“Pathetic Stars” is Bogomil Bratoev’s second solo exhibition. It takes the form of a series of blackboards with white chalk drawings. The works are fragments that build toward a wider dreamscape. The blackboard series is paired with a short printed poetry collection, which offers a key to the exhibition’s broader symbolism. A misty window, at once map and labyrinth, “Pathetic Stars” reveals a world of endless night, where the weight of memory and the fragility of perception collide. A constellation born in rupture.

★

Bogomil Bratoev is a Bulgarian artist based in Sofia. He graduated from the National Academy of Art in 2020, with a degree in Graphics. His practice explores experimental art, using a range of expressive means to aestheticize and exteriorize transformative inner experiences. In 2023, he made his debut with the exhibition “Malakroa: Flowers of Evil” at Cryptid Art Space — a schizoid, counter-nostalgic pastiche satirizing the famous era in European culture known as the Belle Époque. Bratoev is one half of the noise collective “Malak Ruchey”.

Opening: October 20, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Cryptid Art Space (Sofia, 1 Dimitar Traykovich St.