Shaqe Kalaj (pronounced shacha call-eye) is an Albanian-American mixed-media artist, born in Montenegro (former Yugoslavia). She was raised in Livonia, Michigan, and currently resides there. Shaqe defines herself as a content-based artist, where autobiography plays a role in the context of her work. Her life and perceptions are drawn upon for the content and direction of each body of work. Since art and life are synonymous for Kalaj, every aspect of life is open to inspection and is expressed through the symbolism and mood of her work. Transformation, both physical and emotional, is the guiding idea in all her work.

Her work has been exhibited at galleries, universities, festivals, and museums nationally and internationally, including The Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Japan, and most recently, the 6th UIWANG International Placard Art Festival 2008 in Kyunggido, Korea; US exhibitions have included the Minnesota National Print Biennial, Tweed Museum of Art, Birmingham, MN; 31st Annual Juried Competition, Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA.: solo exhibition at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Birmingham, MI; Human Form-Photography Exhibition at the Stepping Stone Gallery, Huntington, NY; 2nd Biennial National Print Exhibition, NAU Art Museum, Flagstaff, and 27th Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, IL. She also received purchase awards from Alma College in Alma, MI, as well as from the South Cobb Arts Alliance in Mableton, GA.

Related to her career as an artist, Shaqe was awarded a 2008/2009 teaching artist fellowship from VSA arts. She was also nominated as a Student of Excellence at Eastern Michigan University in 2006. She co-authored a book, The Unborn Muse of Shadows, in 2003. Outside the USA, Shaqe was recently interviewed for an article in a newspaper based in the capital of Albania, Tirana.

In addition to creating her work, she is a creative coach and teaching artist and is currently the Visual Arts Coordinator for VSA arts of Michigan in Detroit. Shaqe is an advocate for people with disabilities, coordinating a touring exhibit for emerging artists and contributing to career forums for artists. As a teaching artist, she works with inner-city children with and without disabilities.

Because of the nature of her issues-based work as an artist, Shaqe is interested in advocating through her work the issues that she explores. For example, through her “Little Girl” series of paintings, she is advocating for children and the sensitive nature of abuse. And with the “American Woman” woodcut, Shaqe creates dialogue about gender issues. She has spoken to classroom students in a middle school and university about these topics. Her upcoming series about the farm industry, called “Eat Me,” will be an analysis of our food industry through the perspective of the animals we eat, while also addressing health issues and taking a feminist view.

Kalaj holds a BFA in painting and graphic design from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1995. She also received her teaching certificate from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti in May 2006.