TIRANA, June 18 – Albanian cartoonist Agim Sulaj has been announced the winner of the 32nd edition of Turkey’s Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Contest, organized by the Aydin Dogan Foundation and considered the Oscars of the cartoon world.
His winning cartoon in the contest depicts terror and expresses that terror can hit any country and any person regardless of geography, the Dogan News Agency (DHA) reports.
The works of Sulaj, 50, who lives in Italy, have been published in Italy, Britain, Greece and Turkey. He mostly focuses on poverty, environmental problems and the life of refugees in his cartoons.
This year 787 cartoonists from 66 countries joined the contest with 2289 cartoons.
The winning cartoons of the contest will be displayed at the Milta Bodrum Marina Ottoman Shipyard Kaymakamlık Art Gallery between June 17 and 25.
In his landscapes, the painter expresses his nostalgia for the beauty of nature as captured during his childhood, whilst his cartoons depict major social and political problems of the 21st century, such as world poverty, environmental pollution and immigration.
Agim Sulaj’s love of painting and art in general developed from an early age, inspired by the paths and narrow streets of the historic coastal city of Vlora, where he spent his childhood. In 1985, after completing his studies at the Academy of Arts in Tirana, Agim began collaborating with Hosteni, a satirical political magazine, which exposed the young artist to the world of humor and satire, which became an important element in the formation of his work. Around the same time, he developed a hyper-realistic style that is more dominant in his later work.
Agim Sulaj’s work has won prestigious awards around the globe and has been exhibited alongside well known artists, such as De Chirico, Balthus, Nerdrum, Sandorfi, and David Hockney. He currently lives in Rimini, Italy, with his wife and two children, and works as an artist, illustrator and cartoonist.
