TIRANA, Feb. 1 – Karl Korab’s exhibition A Life by the Canvas at the Kalo Gallery will be one of the first artistic exchanges in the context of the Albania-Austria artistic cooperation year.
Karl Korab was born in 1937 in Austria, in the Falkenstein district, in a family of foresters. As a child, he experienced the horrors of World War II, the influence of which can be seen in his work even today.
He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1957 to 1964, under the master Sergius Pauser. He was part of the then highly influential “Vienna School of Fantastic Realism” .
Right after the school, he focused on still life painting, characterized by a surreal-fantasist style, which gave him international recognition and major success at a young age.
Korab is now a renowned Austrian painter, who draws upon the tradition of post-impressionism, abstract art, or the New Objectivity movement.
His works include oil paintings, graphics, collages, screen printing and lithography, mainly still life, mask-like heads and landscapes, but also postage stamps, bottle labels and book illustrations.
Anastas Kostandini, Albanian renown artist, wrote that Korab’s way of conveying modesty, character, figures and moments is astonishing in its soft mystery and detailed manner, making it highly perceivable for the Albanian audience.
“The elegant canvases of KORAB, an artist whose recognition has gone beyond Austria’s borders, bring the interesting aesthetic of intimate interior which exists in his home country. The mirroring of the reality is realized through the elements of the general composition, simple in appearance, but complex and deep in content,” writes Kostandini.
The current Kalo Gallery exhibition is a solid and dense cycle of paintings that enable the viewer to identify with the individuality of the artists.
The transposition of nature into colors is achieved through a rich style, although simple, harmonic and with lots of hues and sensitivities regarding the content.
According to Kostandini, one can identify the thrill that emerges from objects that are often emphasized through the pieces, which appear as commingled in collages.
Korab’s mastery is also evident when it comes to detailed drawings, combined with geometric and architectural combinations.
Kostandini concludes his analysis of the Austrian master by drawing a comparison between his name and the name of the highest Albanian mountain, saying “we wish this meaningful coincidence be more than a simple a coincidence – a connecting bridge facilitating the mutual acquaintance and exchange of values of fine arts of our two countries” .
This exhibition will remain open at the Kalo Gallery until Feb. 15.
