TIRANA, Aug. 10 – More than 160 artists from all over the world will come together in Albania in the first international watercolor festival that Tirana is hosting next November.
Helidon Haliti, 47, a veteran painter who recently represented Albania at the Brioude Watercolour Biennial in France, is the organizer of this inaugural event in Albania as the head of the Albanian branch of the International Watercolor Society.
“The festival’s goal is multifunctional, it started as love for watercolor paintings, the technique of childhood, as a desire to revive this technique which has been silent in the past 25 years in Albania and is turning into a wonderful advertisement to promote Albania, its beauty, art, culture, tradition and above all its famous landscapes and hospitality,” says Haliti.
“All of the world’s schools will be showcased in Tirana, including China, Russia, Europe and India,” he adds.
The festival, scheduled to be held from November 21 to 25 at the National Museum of History, the Palace of Congresses and a private art gallery in Tirana will bring together watercolor artists from Turkey, India, Pakistani, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Russia, Macedonia, Iran, Thailand, France, U.S., Germany, Bulgaria, etc.
The jury has postponed the selection of Albanian artists to make a better representation of Albanian art.
“The freshness of this technique, its purity of colors and the speed of completing it makes watercolor painting magic,” says Haliti.
“You will have the opportunity to see great master of global watercolor art who will not have their works displayed in Tirana but will also engage in live performances, promoting the art of watercolor to the public,” he says.
Skender Kamberi, the head of the festival’s evaluation committee, describes the event as a huge step for Albanian art on the international stage.
Helidon Haliti
“Conceiving an artwork is an event to me. I live 24 hours a day as an artist and I think the concerns and instinct guide me, I’m not a totally cold conceptual artist. I fight with myself and the canvas,” Helidon Haliti tells the Brioude Watercolour Biennial in France.
“We are commended by an internal energy and mine is that of movement, of distress, not standing the stinking water, to that of light and color. These frequent movements and these ups and downs did good to my paintings. I am often a somber and emotional man. I make no sadness and shadow on my inside,” he adds.
“Birds and animals that I paint are the return of myself in my rich childhood, fairytales and trips I used to fly and play on my heroes of today and it still follows me.”
Heldon Haliti belongs to the new generation of contemporary Albanian students who graduated during the early 90s from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana. He has been present in numerous exhibitions in Albania and abroad, especially in Greece, where he currently lives and works. Haliti creates his works in different genres and techniques. The drama of emigration and the spiritual distemper he is still suffering as an emigrant are reflected in several painting cycles, such as “The Legs” , “The pigeon” , “The cage” , “Eva and Adam” , etc.
“Helidon Haliti’s paintings make a man to stop in front of them, maybe not knowing his name, age or birthplace. This is the first unrepeated act of art. An artist owning this talent, let’s say, has the key of the enigma. We know these scenes; we have met them on the world we are living, or deep in our consciousness,” says Albanian internationally renowned writer Ismail Kadare.
“The style of Helidon Haliti’s paintings is that of controlled surrealism which can also be called magical realism. It is inspired by topics of national roots as well as those of personalized and intimate mythology. However, the painter is careful not to fall prey to the pantheism and folkorism preferring illustration from a child’s innocent point of view,” says Kosovo art critic Shkelzen Maliqi.
