Maltese artist exhibits work inspired by Irish and Maltese fertility figures

A Maltese contemporary artist is exhibiting his new work in his first solo show in Ireland, inspired by Irish and Maltese mythical fertility figures.

Gabriel Buttigieg, best known for his contemporary visual drawings and paintings, opened his exhibition Sheela/Sansun(a) Bridging Islands last week at the TON Gallery in Dublin, where it will run until June 26.

The exhibition was born out of a Malta-Ireland cultural diplomacy project led by Dublin-based Maltese art historian and curator, Anne Marie Saliba, who proposed the title and theme of basing Buttigieg’s work on the two legendary figures – the Irish Sheela na gig and Maltese Sansuna.

Artist Gabriel Buttigieg

Found on numerous medieval churches and castles across Ireland, a Sheela na gig is a stone effigy depicting the figure of a woman pulling open her enlarged vulva. Some art historians view Sheela na gig as a fertility symbol, others as a protector against evil.

The other fertility figure who influenced Buttigieg is the Maltese giantess of Ġgantija, Sansuna, who, as legend has it, carried giant stones to form the Ġgantija temples in Gozo, which date back to around 3,600 BC.

Maltese mythology recounts how the giantess built the large temples with one hand, while balancing her half-human, half-giant children on her other shoulder. The folk tale claims she built the temples to evoke rain and fertility.

Inspired by the notions of the feminine and sexuality, Buttigieg creates illustrations of the two feminine folk figures, and his works are full of primitive symbolism, vivid language and visual references to video games.

Irish-based Maltese art curator Anne Marie Saliba

“If you distil Sheela na gig and Sansuna, among several other mythological figures, the essence you extract is the same: the mother’s power and sacrifice,” Buttigieg said.

“There is a strong undercurrent in all these myths which attributes the fiercest loyalty and the greatest strength to the mother, not the father, whose role is reduced to that of a mere inseminator.”

I have retrieved the joy I felt as a child when I first started drawing- Gabriel Buttigieg

Buttigieg is known to be influenced by his fascination of the human figure, and his mixture of themes found in a single painting – from the classical to the contemporary, to drawing on inspiration from cave paintings to referencing video games – his work addressed how he and those around him understand humanity.

The first seed of inspiration for his new exhibition was sown last year, when he was at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and he came across Bruce McLean’s Oriental Garden, Kyoto.

Details of the painting Sheela Papi. Right corner of the painting is a reference to a Sheela na gig.

“Its abstract simplicity and clarity overwhelmed me,” he explained.

After Liverpool, he used painting as a refuge and while he was not satisfied with what he was producing, he described that time as an “in-between moment”, dealing with shifts in his personal life and the impact McLean’s painting had on him.

“I am freer and more sincere in these works than I have ever been in my art. I feel that, with this exhibition, I have retrieved the joy I felt as a child when I first started drawing. I try to convey my delight in a world where everything is precious and where nothing and no one is lost.”

He described the last few months as a time of “birth and death for me”.

“While the exhibited work strives to bridge the water between Malta and Ireland, it also stitches together intimate images and symbols from my own sentimental and imaginative voyage,” he said.

“The work reminds me that it takes courage and strength to give birth, or, conversely, to bring something to an end. We are opening ourselves up to the unknown. Who can predict the outcome of such a fateful act? These paintings are meant as a kind of neo-expressionist diary to those endings and beginnings that punctuate and shape our life.”

The project is supported by the Foreign Affairs and Tourism Ministry, Cultural Diplomacy Fund.