The paintings in Lui Shtini’s solo-exhibition “Fused” at LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina, are a selection of works from 2015 that mark the beginning of the artist’s exploration of a collision of two entities within a horizontal composition. This is the first time this series of paintings will be exhibited.
Shtini’s current paintings investigate the tension between the struggle of two entities, producing an energy that is at once menacing, corporeal and romantic. The fusion of two forms expands Shtini’s earlier works which were focused on the single character, allowing for a more complex relationship between surface, material and medium.
Compositionally they mark a shift away from a central, vertical format and instead extend horizontally from one edge to another, engaging the entire plane of the painting and giving the edges a more active position. Shtini creates a clash between two forms, acknowledging a pressure, fusion, and movement that is conceived by the relationship between two visceral bodies.
There is something prescient about Shtini’s shift in 2015 to these works about dualing forms. They move away from the individual and issues of alienation and misinterpretation, and instead point towards the need for a more critical mass.

Courtesy of the artist and LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina
Photocredit Lule Bagta