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Shpëtim Kërçova's painting is a quest that seems to take place in a kind of undisturbed tranquility. Such first impression is made due to its subjects and themes’ progression, as well as the recurrence of figurative elements emerging through his work for long now. As such, even his last exhibition cycle brings back previous elements, like stray dogs seen in the early cycles of his work. The stray dog is widely found in our urban space and stands as a symbol of crude, natural matter that lives in the areas "controlled" by humans. In Kërçova’s pieces, it contains a primordial force or value that "faces" the female (human) figures shown in painting (this element taken from his earlier works, as well). They come as elaborated urban images, encountered through daily fashion outfit, in which one can also find the fur, thus entwining with the street animal, to establish, maybe, a purposeful analogy. It creates the impression that both "species" stand in discord, in order to control the painting’s territory. Kërçova’s moderate painting style and the ability to embrace the vulgarity found on the street and in the public environment, make it immediately an attentive but alien eye towards what it observes. At the same time, this "poor", abstinent style of painting, no matter how well informed by the western modernity of the twentieth century, reminds you of the oriental painting tradition and its ancient canons from pharaonic Egypt. The inverse perspective and hierarchical organization of the paintings’ figures, (which, in fact, overturns the hierarchy), takes us back to an era where art had no other status than describing or, in other words, accomplishing a kind of afterlife manual. Perhaps, it is the distance required by the artist that establishes a relationship with the present. In his Nilotic scene, (which takes place on the streets of Tirana), Shpëtim Kërçova seeks the point where the quotidian meets the eternal, creating a thin mediate layer, where beauty and vulgarity co-exist. After all, any man-made scheme, howsoever well-planned, is destined to fail in a world that is constantly changing. This must be why, in his painting cycle, we see wind-blown leaflets, the same as in the distant well-known Hokusai, "Ejiri, in the province of Suruga", where travelers suddenly find themselves under the onslaught of the wind that overturns everything, in an impressive landscape in which Mount Fuji arises. It seems as if the indifference of the mountain is also precisely displayed in Kërçova’s dogs; hence, to the human project for the world.
Alban Hajdinaj, January 2021
Artist:
Shpëtim Kërcova finds inspiration on human condition and urban themes . He focuses on figurative oil painting but he likes experimenting with mixed media and installation. His background includes solo and group show . He has exhibited in Albania, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, and in the Stockholm Independent Art Fair – Supermarket 2014. Graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1991, he currently teaches Theory of Field , at the University of Arts in Tirana.
GALLERY70 – TOPTANI CENTER
Rr. Abdi Toptani, Tirane – Albania
+355 6920 41859
+355 6820 41859
info@gallery70.art
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