The exhibition features the original pencil drawings of 20 works by Mr. Gredi Assa, along with his book-album "Children of the Imagination" (Ciela Publishing, 2022). The album comprises 50 drawings and short texts in Bulgarian and French, bringing to life the images of artists from Bulgaria, Europe, and the world who have shaped the history of art.

This exhibition has long been conceived as a guide for advanced lovers of visual arts. It has become a kind of personal history of art, if I may reference the title of a text by the French contemporary art historian Professor Bertrand Tillier. The drawings are dedicated to a small selection of artists whose artistic behavior or morals I’ve tried to unravel over time. In the album, the children are projections or imaginary models of the artist. Observing each creator’s work, I imagined the image of the child—‘the message’—as the artist’s complete vision. Some of the drawings became exercises in imagining children. Drawing—beyond the message it sends us—has a revealing side. Sometimes it is an illustration, other times an emotion or a declaration, but it always reflects the artist's potential. I once wrote that drawing is a magical lake of imagination. Now I would add that it is the crystallized image of artistic thought.

Gredi Assa is a Bulgarian artist born in Pleven in 1954. Over his 40-year exhibition career, he has held over 100 solo and group exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. These include participation in the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), the 24th and 26th Biennial of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana), and the 2nd and 4th Art Biennale (Beijing). His works are part of museum, gallery, and private collections, including the National Gallery of Art (Sofia), Sofia City Art Gallery, Museum Ludwig (Cologne), the Dr. Peter Ludwig Collection (Aachen), the Museum of European Art (Clarence, NY), the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, D.C.), and the Jewish Museum of Art (Vienna), among others. Gredi Assa lives and works in Sofia, is a professor at the National Academy of Art, and has been a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists since 1985.

Exhibition is organized by Bulgarian Embassy in Belgium with the support of D'Bréck and Club Gaida.