Gazmend Leka wins Onufri 2010 competition

TIRANA, Jan. 27 – Gazmend Leka has been announced the winner of the Onufri 2010 visual arts competition. In a ceremony held on Wednesday afternoon at the National Art Gallery in Tirana, a jury composed or well known artists and critics awarded Leka the first prize for his “Lost Paradise” painting.
Leka, 58, has also recently opened a solo exhibition at the Zeta gallery in Tirana displaying a special cycle of drawings called “Black Box,” a symbol to the human being which contains suffering, anxiety, love, envy and creation. The exhibition of 14 works in the 70×100 cm format is Leka’s first solo encounter with public after many years.
The second prize went to Genti Korini for his “Clean the Dirt” and “Golden Bread” diptych.
Twenty-seven Albanian contemporary artists were selected to participate in the 17th edition of the Onufri 2010 competition inaugurated on Dec. 23. The painting, photography, sculpture, and installation works by Albania and Kosova artists were selected for display based on their compatibility with the curatorial concept entitled “I am ART-ist.”
According to the Onufri 2010 curator Suzana Varvarica Kuka, “this exhibition endeavours to display works that illustrate the conscious and subconscious actions of the artist during the process of formation and execution of the work.” The works of Onufri 2010 demonstrate through images some of the themes mentioned in the curatorial concept and some of the features of the physiognomy of art and problematic Albanian life. Also in Onufri 2010 we will become aware of the direction the development and identity of young Albanian artists takes. The Albanian artist, as the producer of a work of art, tends to show himself as a human product that starts initially at the academic education, is shaped during the navigation of the conceptual road, and is determined to leave his/her signs during these creative experiences.”
The participating artists will display their specially created works until February 3, 2011, in the competition named after Onufri, Albania’s 16th century most important icon painter whose works are on display at the iconographic museum in the southern town of Berat, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008.
In many of its previous editions, Onufri was held as international exhibition bringing together artists from all over the world.