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 which the bank has been organising with constant fervour as a tribute to Maltese art and artists. On this occasion I met up with Caesar Attard to discuss this milestone in his artistic career.

One of the first questions on my list regarded the organisation of the exhibition. In the past, the late Emanuel Fiorentino was generally given the task of curating the BoV retrospectives. This particular event was left in the hands of Joseph Paul Cassar, who currently lives and works in North America, and who has a long-standing professional and personal relationship and friendship with Mr Attard. Therefore the whole putting together of this exhibition was a long and challenging process, and one which, I was told, meant creating a whole virtual set-up of the BoV exhibition hall which allowed the planning of the display and order/layout of the paintings.

I am also intrigued to know how Mr Attard feels about the fact that he has been given the opportunity of a retrospective exhibition at this stage in his career, and he does confess to having felt somewhat apprehensive about showing so much of his work (produced at such different stages of his life) under one roof. He nevertheless also looks at his retrospective from a different point of view - that of the visitor, spectator or art enthusiast - because a retrospective also presents an opportunity to view his work in a historical and developmental sense.

Between May and June of last year, Mr Attard presented a series of works titled, and for this exhibition he transformed the space of the Contemporary Hall at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta into a quasi unworldly space covered with plastic sheets (which toned down the deep blue panels and the walls) to which his drawings were then "magically" affixed. Essentially, Mr Attard's work is not limited to the drawing or painting per se, it extends beyond - to the frame and the whole of the space in which his work will be displayed. Some of the drawings which were made between 1999 and 2006 are again presented in his retrospective. They are chiefly coloured line drawings possessing vague semblances, elements or affinities to cave drawings which attracted Mr Attard for their dynamic qualities; these drawings then have added elements in terms of typographic details, which give them a quasi propaganda and poster-like feel. These works also contain strong zoomorphic elements, in that one is faced with a sense of ambiguity when trying to discern whether what is being represented is an animal or human figure (or the detail of one, for that matter) or an amalgamation of both.

In fact, this sense of ambiguity is a running "trend" in Mr Attard's works (an aspect which he is fully aware and conscious of). This is especially noticeable in his "bed-scenes", where figures seem to merge into each other becoming one - but it is impossible to tell whether these figures are merely sleeping, engaged in the act of love-making or even wrestling with eachother. Only portions of the figures are immediately recognisable, and at other times floating or detached limbs are uniquely obvious to the viewer. This ambiguity is also noticeable in many of the drawings featured in the retrospective: often photographic-like figures (generally self-portraits of the artist) are balanced and highly contrasted by doodle-like, willowy figures.

Even his landscapes cannot merely be dubbed as landscapes. At first glance they may appear to be rather calm and peaceful, devoid of human presence, yet as one's eyes travel around the painting a certain eerie or disquieting feeling is encountered. It is almost as though Mr Attard were combining the real and the imaginary and fusing the contours of the earth with those of figures.

Most of Mr Attard's works can be grouped into series which reflect certain phases and periods in his life - he confesses to going through times of fixation or obsession, which he is compelled to systematically work through. These periods then end when the activity stops posing a challenge and when more can be produced without the same amount of effort or energy, thus resulting in the lack of creative satisfaction. This aspect of Mr Attard is probably that which has resulted in the manifestation of multifaceted experimentations with performance art, conceptual art and the interaction with audiences and spectators from as early as the 1970s. His experimental nature derives from a deep and keen interest in various disciplines and subjects: from computer science and technology to philosophy and literature.

Mr Attard had a long-standing friendship with the late sculptor Josef Kalleya - a portrait of whom is also featured in this retrospective - which I also question him about. He reveals that when younger he had a lot of older friends; they might have been mentors or persons whom he looked up to; persons to whom he was grateful and appreciative of their acceptance of him. Although now the coin has been flipped Mr Attard customarily seeks the companionship of students (or ex-students) and young people in general, because of their energy which is for him translated into food for thought. He admits, however, that very few of them challenge their own ideas; he feels they are somewhat conservative and reliant on the constraints of the past, and thus simultaneously surrender their sense of adventure or discovery.

Mr Attard's works speak of unresolved conflicts - his paintings often betray strong and sincere introspection while others are a mere tongue-in-cheek parody of himself. There is, however, strength of unity in this duality - a mysterious ambiguity which remains unanswered to the viewer as well as in the mind of the artist. The unanswered questions keep us looking and searching, engaging and seducing our visual senses. And the uncertainty, the dubious nature lying at the core of these works is what marks them and sets them apart from anything else.

• Caesar Attard's retrospective is on show at the BOV Centre in Santa Venera until the end of the month. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.