The art of Franco-Albanian painter Bujar Luca was subjected to the chilling repression imposed by a now-defeated dictatorship. Overthrown, it continues to inspire his works, feeding his anxieties in various ways. Presented without explanation, these pieces strike us with their gravity and depth. The artist unveils the enigma of a group of creators—painters, writers, musicians, actors of stage and screen—who, despite darkness and repression, sought to keep alive the divinity of art and its eternal laws.

The official communist committees constantly rejected Bujar Luca’s paintings. Yet, with each refusal, an inner feeling—a mix of hope and despair—drove him to pick up his brush again. Over the years, his studio filled with paintings he created in the hope that one day he would exhibit them in a public space.

The day came when he settled in Paris in 1990.