In Dicere Verum, showing at the Malta Postal Museum until Friday, artist Gabriel Spiteri offers the viewer his personal interpretation of truth and reality through art.

A new exhibition at the Malta Postal Museum and Art Hub this week presents a series of still life works that evokes the warmth of the heart and the home, with honesty and a touch of humour.

In his second solo show, Dicere Verum, which translates from Latin as To Speak the Truth, artist Gabriel Spiteri draws on his direct observation of everyday objects as he offers the viewer his personal interpretation of truth and reality. 

Spiteri, who is known for his figurative realism, has painted most of the works alla prima – or during a single sitting of two to three hours – a direct approach that combines careful composition with a fresh immediacy.

Artist Gabriel Spiteri

“I am inspired by the contemporary still life works of Irish artist Conor Walton who explores issues of truth, meaning and value, and British painter Julian Merrow Smith who draws inspiration from what he sees around him at home each day,” says Spiteri.

“I am inviting viewers to consider how our individual perception shapes the meaning of the mundane. For me, what is more true than everyday life? There’s beauty in simplicity and everyday life is beautiful.”

The paintings depict aesthetically pleasing moments: food, bread, fish and fruit, captured in oils with glints of light, shadows and an accuracy that recalls traditional fine art; however, Spiteri’s titles are designed to make you think, and sometimes to smile.

Traffic Jam

A jar of matchbox cars, for example, is called Traffic Jam, and The Odd One Out shows five brown eggs and a white egg “because we all have times when we feel we don’t fit in,” Spiteri explains.

Another showing the sesame-sprinkled Maltese figure-of-eight biscuit is titled Qiegħed Ottu, a phrase used when someone is perhaps ‘a sandwich short of a picnic basket.’ 

“And we’re all a bit crazy sometimes,” he adds.

In other works, Spiteri has arranged his subject matter to narrate a story and tell of deeper truths. To explore themes of love, life, death, solitude, greed, and other common human experiences, these are elucidated in a phrase on a post it note; from others, the viewer can draw their own conclusions.

One of the artworks on show.

In Greed, for example, a pig stands on a podium with buildings in the foreground and cranes in silhouette behind while the sky is dominated by a hungry Pac-Man. “Here, I am observing what is going on in the Maltese construction industry,” he notes.

“Death, Life and Love shows a human skull and a heart on a set of scales: death is a true part of the human experience too, and its inclusion in the show,” says Spiteri, “will hopefully serve to remind us all to appreciate what we have in life and to live life well.”

More light-hearted works include a line-up of colourful toy animals to illustrate George Orwell’s phrase All Animals are Equal (Animal Farm) and a characterful moustachioed character in a yellow crown winks emoji-style.

A characterful moustachioed character in a yellow crown winks emoji-style.

“The egg is one of the simplest things in life, and yet the more you think about it the more you realise the true worth of what’s within,” explains Spiteri.

“It’s like Maltese architecture: while St John’s Co-Cathedral has a fairly plain exterior, the interior is baroque.”

There’s also scope for contemplating searching questions on art and the way it can speak different truths in a series of lectures, also at the Malta Postal Museum and Art Hub.

With two events left to run (November 17 and 27), in Personal Perspectives III – The Greatest Painting in the World, the audience will be invited to see paintings through the eyes of two speakers each evening as they give an individual insight into what they believe is the world’s greatest painting and why it moves them.

Everyday objects feature in Spiteri's paintings.

Topics include a page of the Book of Hours, a medieval devotional prayer book illustrated with miniatures from the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and various saints; and a masterly 16th-century portrait of the elegant Eleonora di Toledo depicting her in a lavish brocaded gown, a reflection of her status as part of the influential Medici family.

Discussion will also encompass Leonardo and Artemisia, Ulysses and the cubist Georges Braque. Is cubism a distortion of the truth or a perhaps more real representation of objects as it takes multiple perspectives to build up a composite view, just as Spiteri’s collection shines a light on the reality of today’s world?

Gabriel Spiteri: Dicere Verum runs at MPM, 135, Archbishop Street, Valletta, until November 15. It is open from 10am to 4pm weekdays. The Museum’s lectures are open to the public and will be held in the museum’s Cremona Gallery. Seating is limited so will be on a first-come first-served basis.