ALBANIA – Digital artist Sirio Berati’s work is not simply digital manipulations. Have you ever came across spiritual concepts, identity questions or self realisation journeys?
Berati is an 19 years old Albanian visual and digital artist living in Montreal, Canada. He has been exploring many areas of art and variety of themes. “Identity is for sure one of my favourites” Sirio says. Berati’s work is figurative and mostly abstract.
Many of his creations involve magic, butterflies or fire and other juxtaposed realities, which makes his work to fell almost magical and ethereal in sense. Sirio seamlessly lays layers together to create mythical visuals, even though he goes for both, realism and fantasy.
“It all started last year when I held my very first exhibition. Well, actually, it started four years ago when I got exposed to photography, but I call the establishment of my exhibition one of my biggest achievements, which officially identifies me as a visual artist.”
Starting from experimenting with different mediums such as sculpture, oil paintings, digital photography and video production, his artworks are associated with an emotional narrative while Sirio tackles the notion of identity.
Sirioʼs first official appearance as a visual artist was when he held his first exhibition in the UK, calling it “Approaching chaos”. An exhibition of 13 outcomes that differ in medium but follow coherently the theme of identity.
“My exhibition is called “Approaching Chaos” and itself talks about the change. Honestly, it is more complicated than that. My aim is to explore my ideas through different stages of self- development and show the process of adapting to the new world. It’s an exhibition which guides one to self-realization.”
“Approaching Chaos” presents a typography installation, a human head sculpture, an acrylic painting, and 5 different digital photographic series: “Descending into the Blue Void”, “Blue Klein Sea”, “In the stormy sky” and finally “Impeded by cultural taboo”. Even though the pieces are significantly different in the way they are presented, unfold and created, together they follow a quite complex and a coherent narrative of gratification.
With a unique perspective, Sirioʼs work channels his own experiences of self-development with the concept of culture.“Conflicting journey to reality”, seen below, is my most successful outcome from “Approaching Chaos”. This artwork was an award-wining piece in a national scale competition in the UK for the new emerging artists! Below are his two most notable outcomes from the exhibition.
This piece in itself talks about dreams that often are a substitute to reality. A man to man conflict is established where the character fights itself in order to reach to a so portrayed imaginary hyperreality; a realm of magic. Subconscious is portrayed on the right, conscious on the centre and ideal self on the left. Again, the process of self-realization and transformation is established in the piece. The image is as well associated with a dreamcatcher, protecting the character from the fears the present holds. Inspired by Blakeʼs Pity and Julia Margarateʼs Angle of Nativity.
Impeded by cultural taboo — is a series of two artworks, each in a different medium.Both of the pieces portray the expectation of society to conform to cultural norms. In this piece we can see how same cultures go along together, even though not as a part of a choice. Different from Creation of Adam, in this piece three rather than two hands are presented, challenging the historical concept of Michelangelo, where the third hand becomes an obstacle for cultural integration.
All in all, Sirioʼs intention with “Approaching Chaos” is to explore his ideas through different stages of self-development and show the process of adapting to the new world.
Recently, Berati has released a new surreal digital artwork in which he asks questions about heavens and hell which has raised a conversation online.
“This piece was inspired by Lucifer, the Netflix series.” Sirio says on his Instagram post. This manipulation aims to question Hell and how it might differently be portrayed. Here, Eve is supposed to be in Hell, but because hell might be heaven to sinners, the surroundings feels so to her as well. Here hell is a deceptions. It takes the shape of what you want it to be or feel. It generally looks like heaven, but the ground in flames beneath Eve suggest that it is not, and the setting in which she is placed is actually hell. Hell is ‘disguised’ as heavens trapping sinners into believing they rest there.
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