Malta’s Contemporary Art scene is ever growing, from genres like sculpture, photography, film makers, theatre, painting, textiles and architecture, there is an ever present glow on the local artists who create with poise, elegance and passion. Narrowing down the selection of talented creators to mere handful is a hard task in itself, the pool of creativity upon our shores is blissfully triumphant, making a shortlisted selection rather hard to achieve.
This blog will give us a brief idea of the local art scene in Malta, the creators behind the artwork that stands out as proprietary and the genres of art that in their own way connect with the soul and hearts of those who appreciate them.
Contemporary Photography: Kris Micallef
Kris Micallef is primarily a fashion photographer whose content is always crisp, clean and striking. Whether it’s a clever angle or an odd pose, Micallef’s fashion photography always seems to capture the essence of couture and style.
Apart from his fashion work, Kris also styles, shoots and edits works that are themed around the underwater world, where his models are captured with the intrinsic features of an underwater sun bream, juxtaposed against the weight and effect of the sea on his subjects. The heaviness of his models is brought to a stop with the effective weighless flow he ensures in his studies of light, angles and contortionism.
Micallef also takes this theme to a further extreme with his eye-catching shots of Malta’s Mermen who flaunt their tails and strike a pose in a nautical scene that screams Malta and high fashion.
Contemporary Ceramics: Sue Mifsud
Mainly focused on plates and other crockery, Sue Mifsud’s tableware is undoubtedly Malta’s finest display of hand-thrown ceramics that have entered the culinary world. Her supplying of custom plates to the local restaurant scene is what has made her a household name, and clearly an elegant addition to any set table, whether in a Michelin star restaurant or your home dining table.
Sue Mifsud’s custom pieces are created upon commission and can vary from plateware to mugs, plant pots to lighting fixtures, and a huge array of other possible items that the imagination might aspire to.
As a trained ceramicist, Sue Mifsud presents the Malta contemporary Art Scene with a fun, whimsical and highly calculated vision of what the future of ceramics could look like. The best thing is that not only is her work pleasant to look at, but also useful in every sense of the word.
Contemporary Painting: Rosette Bonello
Rosette Bonello is an Arte Informale painter, whose artistic expression depends on mixed media, experimentation and roars of unfiltered passion. Rosette is an artist whose limits are never particularly drawn to an end, especially when depth, texture, contrast and magnitude are concerned.
With every canvas that Rosette Bonello creates, her artistic expression is extended, from intersecting lines to mis-matched colour palettes and overlaid colours, every canvas is packed with volume and expansive measures that travel well beyond the limits of a mixed media artwork on canvas.
Bonello’s adamant use of the gold hues in her artworks give her paintings worth and value in their expressive tonalities of rich and cold colour schemes working with and sometimes even against each other to generate a reaction in the viewer that connects them to the artist’s innermost feelings. Rosette Bonello’s art transcends the ideas of abstraction, and elevates them into meaningful displays of colour.
With Rosette Bonello’s art transporting you from her Green Period and Blue Period to her Pink and Purple Period and later the Symbiosis era where an entirely different expression is portrayed is a notable concept of change. While Rosette sticks to painting as an expression, painting as her means and mixed media as her catalyst for transformation, her tools, angles and expressions are ever changing, ensuring that every artistic piece is carried with an alter ego of sorts.
Although it’s rather easy to categorise each of these artists into their neatly assigned category, allowing them to fit in a box of traits and expectations, doing so would be rather a let down. With local artists stemming out from one form of expression to another as swiftly as their muses change, expecting more out of each of these artists would be the better bet.
The Malta Contemporary Art scene is always changing and growing, therefore change within an artist’s expression is bound to take place. Much like artists influence each other and help their community grow, the outside world allows artistic expression to grow into itself and delve deeper into points of environmental and social debate. Contemporary Art has the power to enforce change. And Malta’s Contemporary Art Scene is no exception.
