Rudina Proda, a 32-year old Albanian autistic painter, has taken part in 125 exhibitions and won more than 30 prizes. She has opened exhibitions in the UK, Italy, France, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia and other countries.

In Croatia she presented a colourful collection of paintings in ballpoint pen in May 2011. Many visitors said they had never seen anything like it. When asked about the ballpoint pens, Ms. Proda’s father Dr. Veip Proda, who is also her agent, explained to Southeast Europe: People and Culture, “I bought them for a few cents from some street vendors. I thought they could be of use some day and I was right.”

Such extraordinary episodes are many in Rudina Proda’s artistic life since she embraced painting at the age of 11. In the beginning of her career, the late Albanian painter Ibrahim Kodra described Ms. Proda as “full of talent and poetry.”

Art has played a crucial role in helping Rudina Proda lead a normal life. She can talk briefly but can hardly carry a proper conversation. She has undergone a constant intensive process of medical care, rehabilitation, integration and socialisation since her early childhood.

“Painting was her saviour,” said her father. It was he who sent his daughter to a professor of painting, so that she could keep busy and work on rehabilitation at the same time. But she would go far beyond the professor’s suggestions. She would follow her own instinct.

Rudina Proda started painting quite by chance. On a visit at her aunt’s, she grabbed a simple watercolour box from her cousin’s desk. She started painting that evening, and within a short period of time, had completed 250 works. She has used 15 techniques in her works in the past 21 years, including pencils, coloured pencils, graphite, flamastre, pastels, water colours, gouache, tempera, acrylics, Chinese pencil, rolling pen, uhu-glitter, and oil. Her paintings go through one session only. She begins a painting and leaves it only when she has finished it.  Once she worked on a painting for 11.5 hours without a break.   

The Soros Foundation in Tirana was the sponsor of her first exhibition in 1995, which was attended by the then president of the country and a large cultural and artistic crowd. Ms. Proda has won many prizes, including the esteemed Naim Frashëri (Silver Order) from the President of the Republic in 2003, the “Honour Plaque” from the Albanian Section of the European Academy of Arts in 2011, a medal in Romania and a cup in Avezzano, Italy. Some 10 documentaries, both domestic and foreign productions, have been produced on Rudina Proda.

Rudina Proda has often been called a talent or a genius. But her parents respond: “Talent is 1% while 99% is hard work. Rudina is a real hard worker.”