Thursday, January 8, 2009
Art
Exuberance vs restraint
When a father decided to resume his study of art in order to actively support his daughter's newly-found interest in painting, little did he know...
Wearing his soul on his sleeve
In what is a colourful blast of vibrant and at times passionate colours, James Vella Clark is once again on show, and in more ways than one. If...
Portrait of a nation's identity
The wide corridor that surrounds the Malta Tourism Authority's beautiful courtyard at the Auberge d'Italie in Merchants Street could hardly be a...
Conspiracy theory revisited
After the inauguration of his first solo exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta, Fabrizio Ellul was approached and offered to...
Respect for diversity
The artist C. S. Lawrence is clear proof that some are born to art and others have art thrust upon them. While some painters' achievements are the...
An explosion of colours
Perhaps one of the most versatile contemporary artists of the second generation of artists (artists born between 1930 and 1939) in Malta is Joseph...
Facial frameworks
Just ere six months ago, the Contemporary Hall at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta hosted an exhibition of figure-studies titled...
Reinvented
In his (so far) brief artistic career, Victor Agius has presented various facets to his creative personality. As early as 1999 ‒ that is at...
Exalting the virtues of a simple lifestyle
It's been just over a year since Norwegian-born artist Olaug Vethal passed away. Sadly I'll have to admit that I hardly knew Ms Vethal... yet when...
Fauvist or not, it's all about colour
January took me around to view two strikingly different exhibitions, both of which carry works by relatively newcomers to the local art scene. My...
A view of Malta
The Malta View is an exhibition of paintings by Lionel and Narinder Coates, a British couple who has always exhibited together since they were...
Three - dimensional creativity
The viewing of an exhibition currently showing at Heritage Malta comes as a surprise, if anything for the novelty of seeing not regular flat...
Exercises in exemplary precision
Some artists create mayhem, others create poetry. Brian Grima creates precision calibre art the likes of which is rare to find. If ever there was...
Expression through minimalism
Fra Giuseppe in Balzan is fast becoming a very popular space with artists holding small-scale exhibitions. This venue is presently hosting 10...
Searching for the 'white box'
BPC International Ltd is renowned for being one of Malta's leading marketing and communications agency. As part of the celebrations connected to...
A mini ecosystem at St James Cavalier
Pierre Portelli has been creating installations and interactive pieces for well over a decade, but has been thrown into the contemporary spotlight...
An artist of 'colour'
Charles Cassar is one of the few Maltese artists who profoundly explored aquatic imagery and marine creatures. His love for the sea can be traced...
All hail, Caesar
The 18th Bank of Valletta retrospective, featuring the works of Caesar Attard, marks the end of the first decade of retrospective exhibitions...
Family ties in creative interludes
Some traits run in families. Art seems to be one of them. Artistic heritage seems to proliferate from one generation on to the next and the...
Collaboration in ceramics
After last year's successful joint ceramics exhibition by Maltese and Cypriot artists at the Ministry for Tourism and Culture, the Maltese group...
Art of the spirit
The main reason for my meeting with Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci was essentially related to the inauguration of the Descent from the Cross - an...
Pictures of Mediterranean barrenness
Silence - the pictures speak for themselves. This is photography by Lia Sáile, a young woman from Germany, who defines herself as a nomad in...
An existential quest
Artists and writers were always preoccupied with the existential quest. Existentialism is an important facet of post-war philosophy and its roots...
A very talented artist
For some reason, sculpture has always been the Cinderella of Maltese art, and one look at a few of the statues "gracing" our roundabouts does...
Bare(ly) naked
Skin. Nothing but bare, naked skin and flesh. I doubt that St James Cavalier, let alone Malta has ever witnessed the vision of so many naked...
Encompassing dynamics
Dynamicity is the name of the game. And yet this exhibition is entitled De-Coding Beauty and is an evolving exercise in a de-fragmentation of...
Religious and political 'absolutism'
Raphael Vella, who is a well-known contemporary artist in Malta, creates works that range from altered books to drawings, sculptures and...
A joint adventure in exposure
Eleven in all. All spanking new artists baring their souls to public scrutiny for the very first time - that is the stuff New Faces 2008 is made...
Emotions through watercolour
Undoubtedly one of the leading watercolour artists in Malta is John Martin Borg. He became interested in art at a very early age. His academic...
A celebration of our landscape
Although Kenneth Zammit Tabona's most recent exhibition spans the output of a relatively short space of time and is quite limited due to the size...
Metaphysical abstraction
Alfred M. Camilleri started to show his work to the public way back in the early 1970s. One of the first collectives in which he took part was the...
Of fables and fairies and travels afar
When Salvatore Montanucci set foot on Malta as a tourist way back in 1991, he became so enamoured of the country that he decided to stay. The fact...
Heritage at heart
Fund-raising can be fun and interesting, especially when it involves art and the environment. A visit to the Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA)...
Moments in the open
I don't really like small paintings. Big splashes of colour on huge canvas always tickle my fancy better. So when I went to view Denise Borg...
The four elements of nature
Many contemporary artists use abstract painting and sculpture to express a physical motif and people prefer this kind of work because they want to...
Love of nature and life
Maltese neolithic art is full of symbolism which is reflected in many artefacts, statuettes and ornaments found in different megalithic temples...
Those silent, beckoning, beautiful faces
I would like to coin this artist as the woman who paints women. Now this might bring to mind a string of nudes, parading in varied stances of...
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