Artists PATRICK GALEA and LAWRENCE PAVIA are collaborating in an exhibition titled Perfect/Imperfect. Joseph Agius sits with them to discuss their different views on the landscape genre and the works on display.

JA: In both your cases, your art can be seen is an attempt at minimilising and filtering. Do you find this to be common ground in your separate outputs?

LP:  We are certainly complementary in terms of colour. However, whereas my output is very linear and clean in perspective, Patrick tends to be freer which means that the build-up to our paintings takes different directions.

PG:  In my previous exhibition, Colorabis Senex – Colour the Old, I tried to abstract and minimalise as much as I could. Our palette is similar. Whereas Lawrence’s paintings are linear, more hard-edge and with perspective, I have lost that sense of perspective which I had in my previous work.

'Steps of Cospicua' by Lawrence Pavia

LP: Mine are much more abstracted in terms of minimalism – the more I progress in my art, the more minimal they become. If I paint the same scene over and over again, it tends to become more abstracted; this is something which I like, to simply focus on the essential.

JA: Lawrence, Conrad Thake had defined your art as being governed by light, shadow and line. I find your art to be a quest for purity, an idealisation of vernacular architecture and townscapes. In this exhibition, you have included interiors too that are similarly portrayed. Your art is peaceful and reflective, maybe reflecting your character. Is this so?

LP: I am a very nervous and impatient person, but my paintings give the impression that I’m very calm, as they portray serenity and calm. My demeanour as well might give people the impression that I’m very calm. However, I experience a lot of internal pressure bubbling up. Despite this, I think there is this romantic element in the vernacular and the streetscapes. I try to capture that which is taken for granted and that we sometimes demean, such as the grilled ironwork of cellar openings in our pavements, the drainpipes, the wires in the streets.

'Thirty Shades of Grey' by Lawrence Pavia

All of these are parts of the vernacular which constitute the streetscapes of the Maltese islands; we sometimes tend to forget this.

This is the message I try to convey, that we should be happy and preserve what we have rather than destroy it through building afresh.

Both of us are perfect and imperfect, we comply to both categories- Lawrence Pavia

JA: Patrick, colour and exuberance define you character-wise. However, I feel that you have ‘minimilised’ certain aspects of the exuberance by eliminating features in your landscapes and strongly veering towards abstraction. What caused this change?

PG: I still see the landscape theme even in my new abstracts. I have veered away from the figurative landscape in a move towards abstraction. I tried to avoid all sense of perspective, flattening my abstracts in a way that the viewer can find his own landscape if necessary.

'Red Sky in the Morning' by Patrick Galea

Although I’ve titled them, to show where they originated from, I have to say that although I painted the particular site before but now it has totally changed into an abstract one. Although an abstract, the viewer can still put a subject to it and can still make out a landscape.

I see landscapes in other artists’ works, such as those of Victor Agius and Alfred Chircop among others, even when there might not be essentially one at face value.

JA: The choice of title, Perfect/Imperfect, can be regarded as referring to a symbiosis, to coexistence and that difference makes life interesting. Do you feel that artistic collaborations make exhibitions much more interesting as there is dialogue that invites the audience to participate through contrast and comparison?

PG:  I think so. We’re not comparing and competing.  Comparisons are odious. People might associate me with imperfection and Lawrence with perfection if we are to refer to the chosen title of the exhibition. It is a question of perspective.

'Limestone Passage' by Patrick Galea

LP:  The question of who is perfect and who is imperfect is relative, in the sense that both of us are perfect and imperfect, we comply to both categories.

It doesn’t follow that because my works are composed of straight lines, it means that they fit the ‘perfect’ label. This is the dichotomy and argument that we are trying to create in this exhibition – a discussion of the differences and the commonality, if there is!

Something interesting to note is that while Patrick’s work is moving towards complete abstraction, I have also presented a number of paintings which are totally abstract, in which lines, circles and shapes feature, and which I have left untitled.

'Hotel Room by Night' by Lawrence Pavia

'Salini – Triq il-Baħar' by Patrick Galea

'Sintra, Portugal' by Lawrence Pavia

Using the same palette, there is geometry within the abstract; one can encounter these shapes in the streetscapes that we happen to pass through. We want to create internal discussions in the viewers when they encounter my abstracts and those of Patrick.

Perfect/Imperfect, hosted by Art by the Seaside of 65, Triq Il-Mina tax-Xatt, Senglea, is on until June 30. Consult the gallery’s Facebook page for opening hours.