Gjon Jon Kraja

About Gjon Jon Kraja

I was born in 1970 in a place where pictures weren't defined by the canvas of the artist’s imagination but by the frame of socialist realism – an alarming artifice that came from god-knows-where. It taught us that the beautiful is only that which is useful to society, and that inspiration should spring from the broad mass of the workers. The secret, the mysterious, the subconscious, were all frightful heresies. "Demoiselles of Avignon" were no different, nothing but sirens who wanted to lure us onto the fatal rocks of decadence. A woman was only beautiful in the factory or the field. I refuse to categorize my pictures, to squeeze them into moulds or into trends of terminology. I still have the disgusting taste of ideology in my mouth, like vomit. I like to think of my style as an island. A little island in the middle of the ocean, unaware of other lands. An agnostic island that does not pre-judge, that doesn't try to prove or to impose anything. An island that doesn't need a name and doesn't need exact co-ordinates. An island that I just like to call home.