Neapolitan father and son duo Aurelio and Simone Talpa are presenting a collection of ceramic works with a mythological theme and blended figurative and abstract geometric paintings at Gozo’s Il-Ħaġar Museum, as part of this year’s Victoria International Arts Festival.

In Mediterranean Synergies, Aurelio, an established restorer of art and artefacts known for his expertise in the restoration of works of art in top museums and churches,  explores psychological tension and experiments creatively.

In tandem, Simone etches “all kinds of emotions in modern expressions of pure classicism and geometric abstractions,” museum curtor Joseph Farrugia says.

Perseo

This unexpected mix, he explains, captures and voices Mediterranean creativity.

The Talpas take visitors from the Middle Sea’s imagined past to contemporary anthropology infused with both Eastern and Western philosophies.

In ancient myths, islands in the Mediterranean were often sacred, serene sanctuaries where ancient heroes found respite from arduous journeys and battles, providing a stark contrast to the chaos of the world beyond.

And so, although it might seem incongruous to find Greco-Roman gods and godesses in a museum that has the St George’s Basilica collection as its beating heart, with its hallowed tranquillity, and on an island fêted for being the place where Odysseus stayed with Calypso for seven years, Gozo’s Il-Ħaġar is the perfect setting for this exhibition.

Visitors are welcomed by poetic female figures drawn, by Simone, in a dream-like state against abstract backgrounds and a large blue abstract, an enchanting swathe of sea.

Diana

Studies of faces on small ceramic tiles, by Aurelio, like dramatic 2D representations of dynamic theatrical masks, hint at the narratives of the past alongside ceramic plates and oil paintings of Greek gods.

These include Zeus’s piercing stare and Diana in a stormy lunar blue, perhaps representing purity and independence as a virgin goddess. She peers from a wrapping of windswept hair, lines evoking the wild, natural world in which she lived as goddess of hunting.

These swirling lines are a recurring feature in Aurelio’s work, and a set of Raku heads are crowned, surrounded by or underpinned by twisted wire. These abstracted veils, halos and torsos add a sense of otherworldliness, mystery and a dynamism as the world circles in its eternal narrative.

Aurelio Talpa at work

“In Aurelio’s representations of Greek tragedy, emotions are purposefully made transparent to viewers,” says Mino Iorio, art historian and critic specialising in Art History at the University of Naples Federico II.

“The collection is a reflection upon the emotion of wrath, a key subject of ethical and moral debate since ancient times and its inscrutable cousin meekness, an emotion guided by reason.”

The creation of Raku ceramics involves removing pottery from a kiln while it is red-hot, and then cooling it rapidly, a process known for producing unique crackled surfaces that look age-old, and for its unpredictability. It seems, therefore, uniquely appropriate for the Greek gods.

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“While some of Aurelio’s gods have a classical look, others appear more modern: Perseide would not look out of place in the pages of a 21st-century maga­zine, and Nausica has – to me – a look of Angelina Jolie,” Iorio says.

Simone’s women are rooted in classical tradition but appear contemporary, as he moves from figurative representation towards the aniconic – the absence of iconic figures.

Weaving together figuration and simple geometric abstractions, he uses white, charcoal black, the blue of the sea, a blood red of life and the rust red of the environment against a parched landscape of hessian. His work speaks of a timeless summer in a dusty land, and his strong lines remind us that the history of the Middle Sea has long been defined by thresholds and borders.

By drawing on Eastern and Western cultures, Simone tackles the enigma of human essence.

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“Simone embarks on this new path as a young artist whose own personality is moulded by his father’s earlier open-form approach to his work, thus inheriting an interpretative capacity that becomes pure

introspection into the subjects of his choice which act as filters of the space that envelops and surrounds them,” Iorio explains.

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“It is undoubtedly an approach in which Eastern philosophies offer fertile grounds for study and asceticism, and provide the artist with a theoretical framework to explore the dematerialisation of the body, transferred into the substance of the canvas – nearly always made up of poor material such as jute ‒ and often combined with soil, plaster and charcoal.”

Furthermore, he suggests that as reductionist models of the fields of biology, medicine, neurology, anthropology and psychology are now perceived as inadequate, these works might elicit new philosophical discussions in contemporary anthropology.

Mediterranean Synergies: The Art of Aurelio and Simone Talpa runs at Il-Ħaġar Museum until September 1. Entry is free. The accompanying book of the exhibition, Il-Ħaġar Gems, Series no. 30, is available for €20.