This hotter-than-usual January in Florence is coming to a close and it is time to reflect upon what this last year of renewal after the COVID lockdown has brought with it.
The world of art has changed with the pandemic: it is no longer imperative to able to see art live, the trend of NFTs has made its way both into the financial and into the art world. And, despite After Art having a historical preference for human connection and the direct impact of the viewer with the artwork, we have also adapted to the sphere of digital art. NFTs for all my artwork is now available for our customers, and there are more exciting news on that front incoming as well.
During the pandemic, the art world and exhibitions in Italy were the first to be cut off. After Art has remained faithful to its mission, welcoming other artists such as Giuliano Macca for the first time in its spaces. But we also had the chance to participate in a worldwide online auction nonetheless, connected to the Icon Art Prize, with my painting "Universal Judgement" of 2021, an acrylic on canvas measuring 60 x 50 cm in size. The art critics wrote about it:
"Expressionistic, dreamy, informal and abstract from a conceptual point of view, but stylistically figurative and realistic. Frederik Ivanaj's art is a mysterious and fascinating voyage through the labyrinths of the creative power of imagination. Led by the instinct of the brushwork, the artist creates compositions that mix lines and colour from which shapes emerge [...]
And so it is for Universal Judgement [...] in a nearly Chagallian dimension, which is less violent chromatically, the artist paints as a resigned acceptance of an end which has already been announced. And it is man himself who has decided his own end, the moment he has started acting in an inconsiderate way on the Earth destroying nature and the value of life itself. [...]"
And so, we at After Art Gallery face the new challenges of a brave new world with the same energy as always, with a spirit of renewal which characterises the idea behind the gallery itself. Worldwide system changes and the fall of the West-East blocs is what determined the beginning of the gallery and what has made its name, and this new, massive shift in world equilibrium in the aftermath of the pandemic forces each and every one of us to face judgement. We remain steadfast.
Irene Ivanaj
Comments