A life dedicated to painting/ The teacher from Pogradecar confesses his passion

2024-11-26 08:11:00, Qyteti im CNA

Islam Bakollari, otherwise known as "Lame", has devoted his life to painting and more. He has been practicing the profession of teacher for a period of almost 3 decades. He is currently a teacher in the village of Grunjas in Pogradec, but every day when he returns to his home, he enters the studio and begins to put on the canvas his perceptions that he may have encountered during the day.

Lamja is a well-known painter in Pogradec, while Cna TV has chosen him to bring him as a special character for viewers, as he holds great values ??that should be known and passed on to other generations.

Painting is the art of feeling the soul, from where talent originates from childhood.

Such was the talent shown by Lamja at the age of 5, an innate passion that fortunately was seen by his teachers at school, and today it has borne its fruits with the wonderful exhibitions that Lamja has realized.

A life dedicated to painting/ The teacher from Pogradecar confesses his passion

With great pleasure, Islam Bakollari welcomed us near his studio in Pogradec, where he spends the afternoon after returning from the school where he teaches. A warm studio, among his works, so beautiful in the style that the painter has chosen to furnish it, while there is not even a floor above where he welcomes visitors and has created an exhibition with many wonderful works over the years.

Lamja seems to have inherited this passion from his father, who was a builder and a very good reader, and for him it is a gift that he has had since childhood.

"I started it when I was 5-6 years old, it's a passion born like all other passions, not only art but also photography and others. The child under age has all the gifts, someone from outside is needed, a catalyst to give you an impulse in painting, music and other arts. I got this from my father, who was not a painter but was a very good reader. I believe that a kind of hidden passion I have from my that."

Many children at a young age must definitely have the support of the family or someone outside of it, in case they have a gift and they cannot conceive it themselves at a minor age. For Lamen, it was very lucky that two of his teachers managed to discover his talent for painting.

A life dedicated to painting/ The teacher from Pogradecar confesses his passion

"The teachers discovered it. I was very lucky to have two of my teachers who were painters in the sixth grade and the eighth grade. I am talking about Kudret Durollarin, a painter in Pogradec, and Luan Topçi, a sculptor who is now in Romania. "

A very nice memory for Lamen is the time when he had just started to draw, where he also did his homework with drawings and had thousands of them that he had collected by the time he had to continue his studies in high school. What happened when he returned home was strange.

"First I'll show you a very beautiful motif, I used to do my homework with drawings since elementary school. When I left for high school, I left thousands of drawings at home, and when I came back they were all burned because mine lit my fire and they didn't care what I did. Of those drawings, I only have 2 sheets left from the sixth grade."

Islam Bakollari is a portrait painter, although in the beginning he also worked on sculpture in clay and stone, he is still not separated from painting. When we ask him if it is difficult to paint, Lamja says that this is a very difficult question while emphasizing that painting takes you to another dimension, where feelings and colors speak.

"To the portrait, to the composition. Before the painting I actually had the sculpture, if you look here are some of my works made in stone. I started with the clay, then it was the drawing.

This is the hardest question you ask me. If you don't feel, you can't paint. I have no other answer. Painting makes you enter another dimension, when I paint I lose myself, I am extraterrestrial because feelings speak. Color speaks, color is feeling."

Among other things, Lamja singles out the fact that many emotions are inside a drawing, which he considers naive, just like a child who begins to put on paper what is inside him.

A life dedicated to painting/ The teacher from Pogradecar confesses his passion

"Today I miss those types of paintings that I was an amateur in my early days, I still have a very regular drawing. There are emotions, that drawing seems naive to me. Usually modern art does not return, naivety remains, what children have in mind for it drawn."

What immediately catches the eye the moment you enter Islam Bakollari's studio is precisely the portrait of his father, placed in the corner but which occupies the most special place among all the paintings made. Lamja tells this story to all the viewers of Cna Tv, with a lot of emotion, although his father is no longer alive today, but he always remains alive there in that carefully made portrait.

"It has a very beautiful story. From 2002, 2005 I was connected with a private gallery. I took a series of paintings, 20% was kept by the gallery, this painting was sold for $250. After a week, it comes back again. My father asked me "Oh boy , sell me?", this made me return the money to the person who bought it. After 6 months, my father died and I put this on his grave. This painting is included in my works more accomplished."

Islam Bakollari may be among the few painters who have managed to hold several exhibitions in Pogradec and other cities. Lamja shows that very few may know that he has organized a total of 8 personal exhibitions, in Pogradec, Korçë and Elbasan, showing the good cooperation between other national painters and beyond.

"I am one of the most accomplished painters, there are 8 personal exhibitions, few know this. I did the first exhibition in Elbasan, with Elbasan painters at the Art Gallery in Elbasan. There was no greater pleasure than me, an amateur, to participate in the professionals. The second exhibition is in Pogradec and then in Korça, in 1989. At the time when Kadareja escaped I was in Korçë, part of young talents. My last exhibition is a graphic exhibition of the novel "Weight of Time", by an author from Pogradec. This was the last exhibition in Pogradec as well national and international."

Islam Bakollari, the Pogradec painter originally from the Mokra area, has not stopped his passion for painting, becoming one of the artists who has created several wall paintings in the city and in the village school where he currently works. This is another gift of the painter who is preparing to hold his next exhibition. Painting art remains alive as long as our country has artists with a big heart like Islam Bakollari, who today is one of the artists who make all of Pogradec proud./ CNA