If you've been waiting for a place of luxury, where gold is blinding your eyes and colors are confusing thoughts, this is not the case. Not even if you are looking for a luxurious place with huge, surreal images that involuntarily lead you to a surreal placeâ?¦ Not even a fabulous place that tempts you to think of a new world of colors. This is not evenâ?¦.
It is a typical warm place, as is the real art that sleeps inside the painter Rakip Shabani. For years, for decades, he created every piece of reality in these paintings, until one day he brought them all together and put them in this private corner, completely restful to the eye and inspiring to the mind - with one purpose: to convey messages of stories about the beauty he has frozen in these paintings. Because the beauty found here is real, lived, touched in every inch, made one with the painter's feeling and every bit of his lifeâ?¦
As you step in and look at this gallery with pavilions, you may be a little hesitant to figure out where and in front of who you really are. In fact, it's not about making the author's visit so easy. Because you start the "test" to understand how much you want and how much you want to know about his work. I start each question very calmly (excuse me, wasn't I supposed to ask the questions here?), But then humorously accompany it and begin to confess in detail everything he has laid out on these tables.
The journey through Rakip Shabani's gallery may take hours, but what she feels at the end is that time has flown by. As painfully as the painter begins to confess each painting of his own, so emotionally he remembers the story behind which each painting is hidden.
The whole gallery is divided into several pavilions. As soon as you look at a pavilion dominated by nature, you jump immediately to another in which the focus is on the "Sea", then to another where history dominates its characters. How could a special ward for Ali Pasha Tepelena be missing? So magnificent, as Ali Pasha has always known, is in Shabani's paintings. Except here, most proud. Maybe because the painter himself comes from the same city: "You can never be a good artist if you don't know your roots, your nation well," the painter recounts pointing to a picture of this corner, about which, as he points out, everyone is curious to learn more.
Leaving this corner, where the best Albanian manhood and virtues take more place than anywhere else, you find yourself in a more feminine, mythical, fairy-tale world. Here too, fantasy has known no bounds. In floral bodies, butterflies, fruits and all kinds of elements, products of the author's fantasy, there are also the sensual, romantic, intimate details that the untrained eye does not find difficult to discern.
Another corner of the gallery is that of black and white paintings, with creations from the old Tyrannical tradition. The bazaar, traditional clothing, cult objects and every element that leads to Tirana more than 50 years ago is here. As Shabani calmly confesses, even this part of the gallery could not be missed. Because everyone has an interest in seeing Tirana as it is, comparing it to what it is today, but also meditating on it.
In other wards, the paintings are even bolder. In this photo gallery, you will be able to see every corner of this gallery, which gives every visitor the opportunity to create their own world of color in a matter of minutes and dream of beautiful thingsâ?¦
Two words for the author
Rakip Shabani is one of the best known artists for his work at home and abroad. Dozens of exhibitions bear his name as a painter, with acclaimed works and national and international awards.
Rakip Shabani entered art with the desire to depict images of Albanian landscapes, traveling tirelessly from north to south. He has successfully managed over a dozen solo exhibitions in Albania and abroad, working on oil and watercolor techniques. In 2006, Rakip Shabani opened his own exhibition at GKA, which he dedicated to the figure of Ali Pasha Tepelena, an exhibition of 40 oil paintings and 4 watercolors.
The creator of the painter Rakip Shabani is already preserved in GKA, GA, Vlora, and in collectors inside and outside Albania. At GKA there are 24 works mainly on watercolor technique, landscapes and portraits. The works of watercolor master Rakip Shabani continue the tradition of Albanian watercolors such as Fadil Pellumbi, Sadik Kaceli, Dhimitër Mborja. His works present the magic of the Albanian landscape, with its freshness of colors and his love of painting.
