Where the wild things are

Blerta Hashani, Brilant Milazimi, Lui Shtini

28.01.–01.03.2025

<p>Where the wild things are<br><br>
Blerta Hashani, Brilant Milazimi, Lui Shtini</p>

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Borrowing the title of Maurice Sendak’s iconic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, this exhibition brings together the works of three artists with distinctly different painterly practices, each of them exploring the concept of the “wild” within their respective work. Blerta Hashani’s works distill nature into essential forms and lines that evoke fleeting memories, animated by moments of everyday life. These compositions draw viewers into the quiet, fragmented intimacies of rural existence. Hashani’s paintings blend materials and themes in a dreamlike search for new narrative expressions. Kosovo’s transition in recent years erased certain ways of life, particularly in rural areas, which, far from being stagnant, underwent profound changes. Many of the rural elements Hashani depicts are objects once discarded and now divorced from their original context, yet they stand as silent witnesses to an earlier way of life. In their dislocated state, they seem to have lost the world that gave them meaning and hence rotate towards something we might consider as wild despite the fact that rural, agricultural landscapes most often exist within a human made order. Brilant Milazimi translates his perception of the surrounding world into images that are at once bitter, funny, tender, and strange. Driven by the unconscious and inspired by the imaginary worlds of fiction, he creates expressions that are both sinister and poetic, offering a unique lens on the society he inhabits, especially in respect to his home Kosovo. Exaggerated physiognomies and symbolic representations of teeth or animal features serve as visual markers pointing to current conflicts and their psychological repercussions on the individual. Milazimi often uses animals as metaphors to illustrate human “wild” behaviors—those actions we deem untamed, irrational or out of control. Lui Shtini’s paintings tackle the theme of the animal as an untamed force that breaks through the boundaries between wild species and artistic forms. By reinterpreting the traditional still life genre, Shtini pushes its limits from a contemporary perspective, using animalistic freedom to challenge conventional subject matter and symbolism. While still life typically portrays inanimate objects like food or flowers, Shtini’s work moves beyond these domestic and economic concerns. His paintings animate the genre by presenting animals and their fractured representations—such as spilled liquids or shapeless forms—as the formless residue of life itself. Set against monochrome, mottled backgrounds, these amorphous shapes gradually evolve into zoomorphic figures. Just like in Sendak’s story, mastering the wild symbolizes gaining control over the inner chaos within us. By confronting these wild things, humans find a way to harmonize with the world, achieving a sense of self-mastery. At the heart of this exhibition lies a fundamental human trait: the wildness that resides within us all.