Albanian-born independent Anila Jaho artist is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Computer Arts / Animation, at School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Faced with limited choices in impoverished post-communist Albania, Jaho completed University and legal studies before making the long and difficult trek into Greece where she began to realize her artistic aspirations.
Although she had already been involved in visual art making, and had started to develop her painting skills before leaving Albania, it was in Greece that she began to participate in exhibitions and eventually forged successful relationships with several Athenian art galleries. This resulted in her studying Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, Virginia.
A classic example of making the jump from painting to photography and reinventing oneself, her later work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her emphases are visual metaphors of identity, and the examination the human subliminal behavior in contrast with experienced reality. The “Self-Subliminal” phase of her photography work is the most distinctive one, and it gave her the inspiration to make a new jump from Photography to Computer Arts and Animation. Donald Kuspit commented on her photography work: “Avant-gardism is over, and that a new humanistic art of emotional depth is desperately needed.”
In the United States, while pursuing her dream of growing up as an artist, she also completed a M.A. Degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University, in Washington DC.