In this atmosphere, which the group found unstimulating and unsupportive, one of the few places they were able to explore and develop was a particular classroom at the Academy. There, they would gather after hours, spending whole nights — sometimes sleeping there — playing with different materials, forms and conceptual ideas.

For Arbnor Karaliti, the time spent experimenting in that classroom was decisive for their future styles. “Even though we were in the painting program, in that classroom you could find the most diverse materials: iron, gypsum plaster, tar,” he said. “We were all very invested in what we were doing and it’s that dedication that still keeps us together.” 

The warm atmosphere of their late night talks and discussions over coffee is chronicled in Karaliti’s paintings, most of which are portraits of his friends. “I enjoyed so much the love of people around me in get-togethers, so I gradually found myself painting portraits, set in everyday settings,” he said.  

At one of their regular gatherings the group was introduced to an older generation of alternative artists, most of whom were graduates of the Art Academy from the early 2000s and who had been similarly defiant. Among that group were Jakup Ferri (Kosovo’s representative at the Venice Biennale this year), Vigan Nimani, Lulzim Zeqiri, Fitore Isufi – Koja, Alban Muja and Driton Hajredini, all of whom brought a contemporary approach to artistic practices in post-war Kosovo.

Karaliti said that the older generation’s approach to contemporary art served as a lodestar for the younger group. “I remember the discussions I had with Vali [Valdrin Thaqi] about Jakup Ferri, Alban Nuhiu, Jeton Gusia. It’s interesting because we didn’t get introduced to their work through the Academy, but just through chats among friends,” he said, recalling how one of their professors, Mehmet Behluli, drew similarities between the two generations.  

“He would go on to say that since Jakup Ferri’s generation, around 15 or 20 years ago, it is us now who have the same experimental flair,” said Karaliti. 

The group’s freedom to experiment was among the main reasons that Mimoza Sahiti joined, and ultimately what pushed her to leave Germany for Kosovo. Academically trained in economics, she always used to paint. When she came to Kosovo in the midst of the pandemic, during what was a confusing period for her personally, she decided she wanted to just do art. “When I first saw their works, it was something completely different from what I was used to seeing in Germany and I felt I found a group of people I could belong to,” she said. “The freedom here has given me immense energy to paint; it’s the period I’m painting the most in my life.”

So far each of the artists has shown their works in several national, regional and international exhibitions. At the end of March, Blerta Hashani opened a solo exhibition at LambdaLambdaLambda, an international gallery for contemporary art based out of Prishtina and Brussels. The exhibition, “Ambient,” featured 27 paintings depicting the artist’s intimate relationship with rural landscapes, home and memory. Small in scale and framed by pieces of rough fabric, the paintings, as the curatorial text reads, “evoke sensations of an unspecific nature that feels familiar without being identifiable.”

At the same time, Lumturie Krasniqi’s solo show “0220” was on display at Hani i Dy Robertëve, an art gallery known for its role in keeping Prishtina’s cultural scene alive during the ’90s, when much of the country’s public life moved underground to escape Milošević’s apartheid-like policies in Kosovo. Krasniqi said that although she began working on this cycle of paintings before the pandemic, the lockdown forced her to revisit her creative motives and transform them into a reflection on the dystopian character of the post-pandemic reality.