Mentor Berisha

Tecnica: Oil on Linen

Dimensione: 130cm x 100cm

Anno: 2023

Descrizione: The cycle of paintings Mother and Child explores the mother–child relationship as a fundamental cultural, social, and existential structure. In Mentor Berisha’s practice, this bond is addressed within spaces where the body, memory, and the formation of identity intersect. On a painterly level, time and constellations are constructed from motifs of Albanian geography, based on landscapes, clothing, and cultural elements of the Kosovo region. These visual references function as carriers of historical and emotional memory, situating the mother–child relationship within a specific social and identity framework. A significant portion of the works addresses the experiences of mothers during the 1998–99 war in Kosovo, when childbirth and the raising of children took place under extreme conditions of violence, fear, and survival. In dialogue with these images, the exhibition also reflects on motherhood a quarter of a century after the war, drawing a parallel through time by examining how mothers raise their children today in a reality different from that of war. This contrast highlights not only the temporal difference but also the essential mother–child relationship, beyond any existential and historical circumstance.