Gazmend Leka opens solo exhibition at Art Gallery

TIRANA, March 3 – Gazmend Leka, the winner of the Onufri 2010 visual arts competition, inaugurated on Wednesday, March 2, his solo exhibition at the National Arts Gallery. The exhibition featuring some 40 paintings mainly in the oil on canvass technique will be open until March 27.
Last January, Leka, 58, was announced the winner of the Onufri 2010 visual arts competition. A jury composed or well known artists and critics awarded Leka the first prize for his “Lost Paradise” painting.
Earlier this year, he also 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.
His exhibition comes after that of Kosovo artist Gjelosh Gjoka which remained open from February 8 to 27.
Next April, will bring another special exhibition at the Arts Gallery featuring artworks of late ethnic Albanian artist from Macedonia Adem Kastrati. The series of Albanian painters will continue in May 2011 with a solo exhibition by modern painter Ali Oseku.
The first half of 2011 agenda will close with a photo exhibition by Martin Parr which is brought to Albania in cooperation with the British Council in Tirana.
Apart from temporary exhibitions, the National Arts Gallery boasts a rich permanent collection. In seven halls, the gallery displays the history of Albanian painting, dating from the end of the 19th century, a period which marks the beginning of secular painting in Albania, to nowadays.