Installation of four large-format ceramic sculptures by Leunora Salihu. This is the third exhibition in the PATIO exhibition program at Galería Pelaires.

Encountering Leunora Salihu's sculptures means interacting with structures that defy rigid categorization. Her work maintains a constant dialogue between matter and space, where modular elements interact to form cohesive yet dynamic compositions. By combining handmade components into larger sculptural systems, she explores the balance between repetition and variation, mass and lightness.

Material transformation is a central element of her approach. Clay, historically linked to craftsmanship and human architecture, is meticulously manipulated, evoking both natural forms and industrial designs. Wood and metal, often perceived as rigid and inflexible, acquire an unexpected fluidity through her methods. These materials are not only shaped but continuously reinterpreted, influencing each other in their treatment.

Her sculptures redefine the relationship between object and environment. They do not merely occupy space; they interact with it, altering the perception of movement and structural integrity. Some works suggest expansion and contraction, as if in a state of flux, while others incorporate architectural references, blurring the boundaries between function and abstraction.

Leunora Salihu (Pristina, Kosovo, 1977) is a sculptor whose work explores the intersections between form, space, and materiality. She studied Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Pristina before fleeing to Germany in 1999, where she continued her studies at the Muthesius Kunsthochschule in Kiel and later at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, graduating in 2009 under the tutelage of Tony Cragg.

Her artistic practice focuses on material research, combining ceramics, wood, and metal to create sculptural compositions that challenge conventional relationships between movement and stability, volume and void, function and abstraction.

She has received multiple awards, including the Lothar Fischer Prize (2017), and was also nominated for the Böttcherstraße Prize in Bremen (2022). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the National Gallery of Kosovo (2017), Philara Stiftung (2015), the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (2015), the Temporary Art Centre in Eindhoven (2015), the Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf (2014-15), and Kunstraum Düsseldorf (2012). Her first major solo shows took place in 2011-12 at the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, and more recently at the Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden in Wuppertal (2021), Philara Stiftung (2020), and the K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2017).

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Galerie Thomas Schulte.

La Galeria Pelaires ha rebut una subvenció del Consell de Mallorca per a la realització d'aquesta exposició.