Friday, 5 September 2014

Ex Voto: The Concept


With a week to go for my first solo exhibition, things are getting quite hectic. However, these last few days I have been constantly writing about the project, and how the whole project turned out to be a discovery of inner solitude and factors of religious islanders. Most of my past projects have been about memories and location, but with Ex Voto I have taken the subject to a new level.

This project revolves around Christian iconography, the conditions of living on an island and the relation to the sea. Maltese seascapes are depicted in contrast with urban Berlin landscapes to create platforms on which solemnly silent figures exist.  These figures echo the feeling of solitude and helplessness found in most of the maritime Ex-Voto pieces; whether alone or in a group, the characters seen in these paintings are always alone, relying on their own skills and supernatural phenomena, hoping to land themselves in a better situation. This desire for a better state was taken to a different level when interpreted in the contest of the islander's utopia of the continental city as a destination to escape to in order to be fulfilled.


The works explore the ambiguous relation between the sea and the individuals who feel threatened by the physical isolation that it creates, but also feel that the sea gives them an identity, at par with their Catholic upbringing.  This body of works bears testimony to contemporary salvationliberationand an introspective journey which often leads to solitude.  

 Ex Voto opens on the 12th September at Maritime Museum, Birgu, at 8.00pm and runs until the 26th September 2014.


Ex Voto is a project supported by the Malta Arts Fund


One can click here for updates and details about the Ex Voto project, and below are some teasers from the final sketches that eventually ended up on canvas.





Friday, 25 July 2014

Ex Voto: Sketches 3

Conceptual sketches for the Ex Voto exhibition, which opens on the 12th September 2014 at Maritime Museum in Birgu, Malta.  This project is supported by the Malta Arts Fund.







Friday, 18 July 2014

Ex Voto: Sketches 2

Conceptual sketches for the Ex Voto exhibition, which opens on the 12th September 2014 at Maritime Museum in Birgu, Malta.  This project is supported by the Malta Arts Fund.





Sunday, 13 July 2014

Ex Voto: Sketches 1

Exciting times are ahead, since in less than 2 months my first solo exhibition would open.  

The following are sketches, done mostly on site, where I study the forms and cliffs mostly found in the South of Malta, and from l-Ahrax tal-Mellieha. These sketches, combined with visits to Mellieha Sanctuary, Zabbar Sanctuary Museum and tal-Herba, Birkirkara, are to serve as a vehicle to produce works in a contemporary idiom.

This project, Ex Voto, is supported by the Malta Arts Fund.








Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Ex Voto: Visual Research


Recently I have embarked on a project titled Ex Voto, which will eventually lead to my first solo exhibition this coming September at The Malta Maritime Museum in Birgu. Ex Voto is a project supported by the Malta Arts Fund.

Works produced would be a contemporary portrait of salvation built by a fusion of Christian iconography, urban environment and seascapes.  Malta is highly evident in such project: the idea of an island, with all its connotations, would be present throughout the project.  As a start, I have been focusing on Filfla, which for me, coming from Zurrieq, has always been part of my childhood scenario.


Together with reseaching the limited resources information related to this islet, I am currently trying to get access to see some Ex Voto paintings which used to be at Tal-Hniena chapel in Qrendi.  One particular painting, dated 1831, shows two fishermen, Pietro Formosa and Guiseppe Farrugia, being rescued after being stranded on Filfla for a week due to a tempest.

Other locations have been explored as well, including Comino and Gozo.  The aim is to build a clear visual link between island, solitude and salvation.  The media in which these themes would be explored are lino printing and painting,







Thursday, 22 May 2014

Assimilated Spaces

On the 30th of May, us artists at the Xarolla Windmill shall be opening our first exhibition for this year.

The works to be shown during “Assimilated Spaces” are a result of direct observation of tangible spaces. Much of the work on display is based on the reactions and relations present, or absent, within the context of space.

“Assimilated Spaces” aims to explore the intersection between real and imaginative spaces, and how these are interpreted by the participant artists. The process by which the works were created was an exercise in analysing surrounding and imaginative environments.  The work attempts to reassess and re-qualify our relation to everyday space, most of which are often looked over.



Drawings by Andrea Zerafa and paintings by Ryan Falzon are presenting an assimilation of tangible spaces, created in a personal and expressive manner.  Zerafa would be exhibiting a series of small ink and wash drawings which were all done on site, in this case at the University of Malta.  These drawings portrait an interaction between the area within a classroom and students; it is about capturing a fleeing moment.  Falzon’s works are on a similar wavelength, where urban spaces are going to be presented on a parallel level with activities that can only be executed within a built environment.  Collage and painting are the main techniques used here, combined together to create colourful but somehow discomforting works, mostly due to the undercurrent themes found within the works, themes such as the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the Vietnam war, traffic accidents and chronic solitude, among others.

Detail from "Pig Platz ist Uber Hip", one of my works to be shown during Assimilated Spaces
Sabrina Calleja Jackson is presenting two works, executed in oil on canvas.  The space explored here is more on a personal level, space that is visualized through soap bubbles. These bubbles represent ephemeral happiness, a happiness floating within the boundaries of the canvas.  The works are done in an elegant, clean manner, where the light background and overblown bubbles clearly demands the attention of the viewer.

 The works by Gabriel Buttigieg consists of five profiles of the same model, done in conte crayons.  The model is existing within a confined space, with the boundaries between the subject and background being blurred due to the rough working manner of the artist.  The fragility and elegance of the design push further this idea.  Sarah Maria Scicluna‘s works were created out of exploration of space in relation to the shapes in use, mainly being concerned with composition and how it can be displayed. She will be presenting four pieces executed in silk screen technique.  Her works, just like those from Calleja Jackson, are clean and minimal, existing on a plain surface.


This event is done in collaboration with Zurrieq Local Council.

Visit the Facebook Event Page by clicking here for updates regarding the event.