Andrej Smolák

Smolák, Andrej

Andrej Smolak, born in 1953 in Humenne, Czechoslovakia, is both artist and gallery owner. He is part of a large group of Slovak artists who studied at the Prague Fine Art Academy. As a fine artist, he has held 50 personal exhibits, beginning in 1982. In 1993, he opened his first gallery in Snina, Slovakia, in 1998 - a second one in Bratislava. He is founder of the Snina International Fine Art Festival, as well as laureate of the European Franz Kafka Prize (1998), the European Art Union Prize (2002) and the Salvadore Dali Prize (2003). He is also director of the ART.EAST Foundation, which unites a group of artists in former East European bloc countries. He lives and works both in Snina and in Bratislava.

Andrej is the project author of the project PAINTED EQUATOR. In 2009 he launched the Painted Equator Project, also known as the Global Peace Chain. The project's goal is to collect 40,075 mini-paintings, measuring 20x20 centimeters each, which collectively would create an imaginary chain of human hands, long enough to encircle the Earth. The individual paintings would be created by artists, celebrities and ordinary people from all walks of life representing every country in the world. The list would include monarchs, statesmen, politicians, scientists, Nobel Prize laureates, performers, actors, athletes and anybody else who would like to see the project come to fruition. The chain is to raise global awareness of the need of friendship and human harmony.

 

www.galeriaas.sk

www.paintedequator.com