In the artistic research conducted by Leonard Sherifi we can trace two fundamental elements with which the artist feels a particular bond: one is the human and the other is the natural. In his works, the human subject seems to lose its typical compositional centrality in favor of a greater unity with the surrounding landscape. Often the human element blends into the natural one and is placed in the background, instead bringing trees and shrubs to the foreground.

From a chromatic point of view, many works are characterized by the use of unusual colors for natural contexts, the leaves become magenta and the skies become aquamarine. The air loses its transparency and is crossed by vibrant and multicolored brushstrokes. From one painting to another, the forms gradually become more simplified until they become eloquent silhouettes of the starting subject that are combined with the painted background.

Carefully observing the pictorial language of Leonard Sherifi we can trace various elements that refer to children's drawings: on the one hand we notice a use of color strongly denoted in imaginative terms, on the other hand the lack of chiaroscuro and the frequent frontal view imply a greater two-dimensional development of the image. At the same time, the formal simplification applied to the objects frees them from their geographical context and invests them with a more generic meaning. Just as a child assigns a symbolic value to his drawings, his paintings do not simply depict a house with a garden, rather they represent the two key concepts of "home" and "tree", which in turn make us reflect on the relationship between man and nature.

Within the framework of this relational investigation, Sherifi  decides to set aside conflicting and environmentalist issues, and offers us serene images in which man and nature coexist in harmony. Whether they are houses, a boat or a boy walking, the human elements are immersed in their natural environment, they are part of it and inhabit it spontaneously. The human figure can then find a correlation with that of an organism that lives within its habitat.

On a pictorial level, this correspondence is expressed by treating human subjects in the same way as natural ones, that is, by using similar colors, spreading them with dry brushstrokes and with the intention of creating a patch filling. Such spots often appear in the artist's work, in many previous works they recall single-celled entities that wander in the represented environment bringing it to life. They can be seen as basic biological units that contribute to fueling the normal cycle of nature. See in this regard the series "Tree Pulses" of 2014 or the installation "The way our biological world works" of 2012.

In the work of Sherifi this biological factor is further emphasized by the frequent use of acid colors that refer to the environment of a chemical laboratory. This reference to the cellular world is intended to make the observer reflect on the functioning of the natural machine, based on a continuous exchange and recycling of matter and which leads to having an intimate connection with what is around it. For the artist this aspect is fundamental; in the relationship between man and nature both are on the same level, both are part of the same world and are made of the same substance, for this reason his research comes to reconcile them.

Giacomo Saccomanno