Ray Axiaq, one of the best abstract expressionist exponents on the island, is organising a unique retrospective exhibition at the Cavalieri Art Hotel, St Julian’s until August 18.

The exhibition presents two facets of Axiaq’s art. It presents a vigorous contrast between the recent past and the present work, as he had to compromise his spontaneous action painting to produce compositions that can be transformed into music.

The exhibition includes a triptych, the result of teamwork between Axiaq’s lecturer Antonio Molliconi (an architect by profession) who produced a computer-generated digital print of a design of the elliptical Grand Master’s Palace staircase, freely, imaginatively and manually coloured by the artist on barypa paper.

Being a rebel, Axiaq’s priority is his liberty and freedom of expression. “I feel that abstraction cannot be rationally interpreted, but that it absolutely speaks to you through your intuition. For me, art, like music, needs to communicate but not necessarily be understood.”