“Substance” is the title of the exhibition opened at the FAB Gallery, in honor of the one-year anniversary of the passing of artist Ali Oseku. The artist’s works were on display for visitors from April 30 to May 10, 2025.
The exhibition curated by Najada Hamza is a poetic homage to the artist Ali Oseku, capturing the essence of his intellectual legacy and his lifelong devotion to the substance of art. The exhibition reflects on Oseku’s unwavering focus on the essential over the superficial, on meaning before form, and on the creative process itself. The artist stated: “When you work for a long time, you begin to master the material, the material itself and the pictorial substance becomes honey, gains value, becomes gold, becomes SUBSTANCE…” The exhibition follows this idea as a guide to understanding his works.
This is not a retrospective exhibition in the traditional sense, but a space for reflection and remembrance. It invites us to confront the way material, through sensitivity and dedication, transforms into meaning.
The curatorial approach intertwines personal memory with philosophical thought.
The exhibition includes works from recent years, but at the center of the gallery’s main room stands an early piece by the artist—his diploma project—accidentally found in the courtyard of the University of Arts. The work transcends its painted subject and also reveals the artist’s dreams, which were “fractured” by the dark period of communism.
Nonetheless, though separated in time, all the exhibited works are united by one element that remains unchanged: Oseku’s distinctive colors, which serve as a bridge between two worlds, two eras, and a single artistic spirit.
Ali Oseku (b. in 1944) in Tirana, Albania. In 1959 – 1963 he attended the artistic lyceum “Jordan Misja”. In 1969, Ali Oseku graduated in painting in the “Academy of Fine Arts”, Tirana. From 1970 to 1973 he became the scenographer of the “National Theatre of Opera and Ballet”, Tirana. He was imprisioned for three years during the dictatorship in 1975 – 1979. He was condemned as a modernist who had fallen under the evil spell of Picasso, Chagall, Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali. In 1987, Oseku painted Enver Hoxha’s 8 by 10 portrait. In 1991 – 1998, was a curator in “National Gallery Of Arts”. From 1998 to 2014, become an Associate Professor and Head of Graphic Department at the “Academy of Fine Arts”, Tirana. In 2014 and on-going, painter in free creativity.
