Corner Shop Of My Youth

Cherry Bonbone, Oil on Canvas, 60 x 60 cm, 2021

An inspiration for my paintings is my childhood memories from summers spent back home. My closest link to my Kosovan culture is the language I speak at home and the food we eat, which is a constant reminder of my roots. The paintings are a start of collection I am calling the corner shop of my youth; based on my favourite snacks which are a reminder of the happy, distant memories. My paintings are also a way for me to engage with my culture on my own and get closer to it and explore the influence of it within my own identity.​

​Commercial art is quite a big influence for my practice, the exaggeration of colours, text and images making the product more visually enticing. Intertwining the colours and shapes by exaggerating the colours of the packaging beyond the borders of the product. Commercial art makes us crave the product that we’ve never even had; I wanted my paintings to have the same effect. I wanted the viewer to crave my favourite snacks and drinks just as much as I crave them. Making  the viewer stick around for longer to engage with the painting to see where the background ends and the product starts, making it stick in their head for the rest of the day making them want it even more. By having the colours of the background and foreground be the same as the packaging it creates this negative space in the borders of the product. The negative space is also heavily inspired from my prints which give off the same effect as my paintings. Showing the distance between the viewer and the item just like the distance between Kosovo, my memories and me.