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