The great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) once said that “originality consists of returning to the origin”. That is, a return to nature. Gaudí is perhaps best known for Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, a neo-Gothic religious structure he had inherited from another architect. However, Gaudí left his indelible timbre on the building’s iconic design where nature features prominently.
Almond BloomThe truth is that, although even Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia was criticised (even by George Orwell), beauty is universal. Although, of course, beauty is not everything in art, and it takes a good eye to appreciate any good art.
Nature is to be admired and many artists remain fascinated by what it has to offer replicating its beauty through their artistic creations, whether realistically or not.
A Maltese contemporary artist who keeps on revering nature in her art works is Anna Galea. Galea has dedicated another exhibition to her luminous watercolour creations, where the semi-transparent medium is exploited to its best chromatic qualities. Watercolour Abstractions was open at the Heritage Malta Gallery in Valletta. This is a new collection that harks back to her renowned floral pieces, for which Galea is now renowned – but it is also a harbinger of things to come. This is, because the exhibition consists of zoomed-in lilies, almond blossoms, bougainvillea, and such, together with non-representational abstract pieces.
The semi-transparent medium is exploited to its best chromatic qualities
There are, in fact, some completely abstract compositions on display but, to complement the representational pieces, are several watercolours with what we can call semi-abstracted subjects. Nonetheless, the inspiration is always derived from the nature and landscape that surrounds the artist.
Watercolour painting, which came out of the shadows of art history in the Renaissance period by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, is often associated with Sunday painters, with subdued tones and pastel-like hues. They are also considered by most to necessarily be executed in small dimensions. In fact, a large scale watercolour is often considered to be circa 50cm large.
Well, Galea has managed to produce watercolours that are over 150cm large, and with intense pigments that are not usually associated with watercolour painting. She has shown herself once again to be a great virtuoso with the watercolour medium.
One needs only mention Opening Up, a painting of five lilies emerging from a fluid background that measures 152 x 95cm. Both of these are great feats for Galea who clearly does not shy away from a large blank piece of paper. And yet, she managed to entirely fill the picture plane, with vibrant watercolours and a composition that radiates energy and life. Ever the optimist, I am sure that this is certainly what Galea tries to evoke with her art.
Bold and bright colours are especially visible in Galea’s plant representations, such as Fertility, but it is omnipresent throughout the exhibition, with their intensity fading when more water is applied when a more watered down effect was desired, such as in the abstracted works that are very fluid and organic, and the Roots series of paintings. What one learns about Galea’s technique, moreover, is that the paper itself lends its own luminosity to the paintings and pigments, where white is an essential shade.
And light was a great protagonist in this exhibition, featuring in the individual works – adequately hung as a coherent series – themselves and also in the gallery in the historic Valletta.
Galea was recently invited to Fabriano in Acquarello 2016, together with seven other Maltese watercolourists. She was one of 29 out of 700 artists from 46 countries selected to give a demonstration. Participating artists were also able to experience the production of paper in one of its factories.
Fabriano is the cradle for modern paper-making the production of which has been linked with the town since the Middle Ages. This is testament to how highly revered the watercolour medium and Galea’s creations are.