Press release
The gallery will be open Sunday May 25, from 2pm to 6pm.
In her recent project titled The Inner Door, Albanian-born artist Anila Rubiku explores the intimate boundary between private and public space through embroidered abstraction. Inspired by the inner doors of residential buildings in Milan—also known as the “Città Meneghina”— Rubiku reflects on forms of transition, thresholds, and domestic architectures. These doors, often overlooked yet architecturally significant,
were designed by renowned Italian architects over the past three centuries, and have long held a quiet but poetic presence in Milanese urban life.
Using her signature method of hand-embroidery on canvas, Rubiku transforms these architectural elements into luminous fields of color and texture. Her meticulous stitching renders abstract compositions of light and form, evoking both physical thresholds and emotional passageways. The artist refers to these works as a metaphorical investigation into the idea of «interiority»—the inner spaces we inhabit, both architecturally and psychologically.
«I’ve always been fascinated by the poetry of everyday objects,» Anila Rubiku says. «The inner doors of Milan’s buildings hold a unique kind of beauty—minimal, functional, yet quietly ornate. They mark a transition from the outside world into the personal realm.»
The act of embroidery, a practice traditionally associated with feminine labor and care, becomes for Anila Rubiku a form of resistance and reflection. Her practice weaves together personal narrative, architectural memory, and political consciousness, creating what she describes as “emotional topographies.”
"The Inner Door" invites viewers to contemplate the invisible spaces we pass through each day—portals between self and society, silence and speech, concealment and revelation. Each piece becomes a gesture of connection between past and present, surface and depth, individual and collective.