Critic’s Pick:
Galerie Nathalie Obadia is presenting the first exhibition in Belgium of Albanian painter Edi Hila, showing newly created works and previous series by the artist born in Shkodër in 1944. Considered one of the most important figures in the Balkan arts scene, Hila’s works respond heavily to the post-communist times in which they were created. For his show at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, several paintings which were also featured at the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2014, pictorialize the cultural, social and political reality in a country that Hila refused to leave despite the hostility and that he now considers to be in ‘permanent germination.’ As proven throughout his career, Hila is an observer of circumstance, surroundings and tensions and through this attentiveness, he is able to solidify his position as a painter of politics. His offerings are reflections on the bleakness of everyday life following the regime of Prime minister Enver Hoxha (1944–54), resulting in tones and scenes that embody a chromatic and melancholic temperament. Influenced by expressionism, his subtle meditations on history, domestic interiors or antique weapons, produce soft hued depictions of photomechanical images that communicate something poignant about the murky world around them.
- Kadish Morris
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