PRESENTATION: Ilirian Shima-Retrospective

Ilirian Shima was born in 1964 in Tirana, Albania, and has been living and working in Greece since 1991. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana. He works in both painting and sculpture. His practice involves a variety of materials, including marble, wood, ceramics, metal, and synthetic media. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and held many solo exhibitions, and has also created public artworks for which he has received awards.

By Vicky Trochidou
Photo: Vicky Trochidou’s Archive

The retrospective exhibition of Ilirian Shima at the Athens Municipal Arts Centre presents a comprehensive survey of the artist’s multifaceted practice. Shima has developed a visual language that allows him to move seamlessly between painting and sculpture. Form dictates its own imperatives, and his practice—from ceramics, marble, metal, and wood sculpture to painting with curvilinear contours or thick layers of color—leads to its liberation or transformation. His works, whether abstract or symbolic, frequently draw on the human figure, the animal and plant kingdoms, and hybrid forms, balancing restraint and expressive intensity, occasionally with wit or humor.

The exhibition encompasses a broad spectrum of Shima’s work, emphasizing both sculpture and painting. Sculptural and painted works coexist within a unified space, subtly divided into three zones, generating an ongoing dialogue across mediums. The presentation avoids curatorial texts, relying on titles and dimensions to guide the viewer, and the lighting focuses primarily on the paintings. In addition, the visitor has ample room to move among the 65 works without visual fatigue.

In sculpture, Shima employs carving techniques in marble, metal, and wood, achieving smooth surfaces that convey harmony. Works include anthropomorphic forms such as “Genesis”, animal references such as the rooster (Gjel), and plant motifs like the pomegranate, the olive fruit, and the walnut, as well as hybrid creations such as “The Thought”. The triptych “Mediterranean Sea, Sky & Earth” exemplifies the interplay between material, immaterial, and collective experience. In some works, painted surfaces overlay carved forms, further exploring the relationship between substance and spirit. The Erotica series, also sculptural, emphasizes sensuality, expressive forms, and the tactility of material, highlighting the human body in three-dimensional presence.

Painting in Shima’s oeuvre emphasizes materiality and gesture, with bold colors and dynamic brushwork. Noteworthy works include Motherly Affection, conveying tenderness yet an absent maternal face, the “Girl with the Earring” (Shenepremte) referencing Vermeer, and “Laokoon”, which humorously depicts sculptural elements in painterly form. The Erotica series, also sculptural, emphasizes sensuality, expressive form, and materiality, highlighting the human body in three dimensions

The Sound Art series, represented by the almost monumental work titled “Briharpa”, emphasizes a multisensory experience and engages in dialogue with the mixed-media piece “Diva”. The coexistence of sound and visual elements creates a conversation between different materials and senses.

Shima emerges as an artist balancing rigor and expressiveness, the tangible and the enigmatic. He transforms matter into a catalyst for internal reflection, encouraging viewers to engage actively with each work. Ultimately, the exhibition allows the audience to compose their own imaginative worlds, full of contradictions, memory, and introspection.

Through this retrospective, Shima’s visual language—spanning sculpture, painting, and sound—reveals a coherent artistic vision, where form and matter are continually questioned, reinterpreted, and transformed into vehicles of poetic expression, inviting the viewer into a space of both aesthetic enjoyment and contemplative thought.

Photo: Ilirian Shima, Mediterranean Sea, Sky & Earth, © Ilirian Shima, Photo © & Courtesy Vicky Trochidou

Info: Curator: Katerina Koskina, Athens Municipal Arts Centre, Parko Eleftherias, Athens, Greece, Duration: 5-16/11/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 13:00-18:00, www.opanda.gr