Antoine Camilleri

Like most people familiar with local art I feel the loss of the great artist Antoine Camilleri. I offers my condolences to his family, relatives and friends - he was a great inspiration to me.

Having been a great pioneer of modern art, Camilleri was one of the most innovative and experimental artists of the modern period. He belonged to modern art circles and contributed to art as an inventor, teacher and as an artist. His works, which are so autobiographical, give an insight into the truly intimate and personal life of the artist where he chose subjects like relatives and friends.

The symbols in his art mirror the profound spirituality which he had instilled in his love for life. He found his style in works which he executed in clay which are truly unique; he would incise the figurative subjects which he wished to depict. In these works he would allow nature to intervene, allowing the clay to crack so that they would be symbolic of the pores in our skin without which we would be unable to live. Since the clay relief works have cracks which symbolise poles, it can breathe and give art life.

We can say that the soul of the artist truly lives through his work. His figures are generally elongated, reflecting the Parisian culture and way of life which he strongly felt he was part of. The way in which he incorporated 'found objects' into his art made it hard to separate his life from his art because they ultimately were one person.

I am an undergraduate student at the University of Malta and I am working on a thesis entitled "Antoine Camilleri - The Man and the Artist". I hope to gather as much information from anyone who can help me like friends or people who own works by Camilleri, or anyone who has information about the artist.

I can be contacted by e-mail at ainhoa21@gmail.com or on tel: 2141-8126/7 or 9949-6271. In this way I would be keeping his memory alive.