To uproot correlates with the act of pulling something from the ground, mostly associated with nature. It is a term that signifies an act of removal, but also an act of unearthing. Likewise, the notion of unearthing correlates with what lies beneath; a truth that nobody else knows, or perhaps everybody knows and chooses to ignore.

In Up/Root, a collective exhibition by the final year students of the Master’s in Teaching and Learning in Art, such questions are at play. The four artists, Andrew Inguanez, Daniel Mifsud, Shania Camenzuli and Stefan Spiteri, utilise an introspective creative process as a means of uncovering such truth – they uproot to unearth, and they unearth to reflect.

Essentially, this process of uprooting ties hand-in-hand with German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) understanding that a work of art must be unconcealed in order to expose its truth. The notion of truth is a multifaceted understanding of a greatly complex nature, and at times its sheer incomprehensibility is often met with great difficulty. Essentially, it is for these reasons that Swiss historian Heinrich Wölfflin’s (1864-1945) argument that ‘form has the power to awaken vision’ blends in seamlessly with the concept of this exhibition.

The use of mixed media, ranging from the traditional medium of charcoal and paint in the works by Daniel Mifsud and Stefan Spiteri respectively, to Shania Camenzuli’s digital renders, and the interesting use of photography and gel plate printing in the works of Andrew Inguanez, essentially serve as how such artists aim to uncover their own sense of truth.

'Trace Fossil 3' by Stefan Spiteri

To reverberate Wölfllin’s words, it is through such artistic form that they seek to awaken their own vision. Perhaps a central point of unity among the artists is that each of their visions deals with the notion of introspection. In connecting with themselves, they look inwards rather than outwards, and transpose their internal aura onto the external work of art, via the creative process. Such a process resultantly tugs at the heartstrings of the viewer.

Stefan Spiteri’s Trace Fossils deals with the intriguing concept of presence and absence, and the remainder of the two. His series of paintings embody the understanding of trace fossils as evidence of a past gesture of which only a mark remains. Much like the Odyssean notion that one must look to the past in order to move forward, Spiteri acknowledges that the landscapes we are making now will eventually sink into strata in the under land, becoming the sediment of the future.

The four artists utilise an introspective creative process

Nature and landscapes are at the core of Spiteri’s works, and likewise, Shania Camenzuli’s Hive reflects on the current environmental and social matters pertaining to both the local and international contexts. Hive is mainly derived from the thought that our way of living may be subject to unpredictable environmental changes – a clear example of this is the drastic increase in the oriental hornet population in the local context. Camenzuli introspectively looks at society, and thus questions our collective truth, but also the duality of reality and fiction in her multi-media project.

Detail from 'Invasion' by Shania Camenzuli

Essentially, both Spiteri and Camenzuli’s work emerge from the subtle changes in the zeitgeist. Every movement in art reflects the spirit of its age, but never the same reality, for every period in time provokes its own idea of rea­lity as it is applicable to the current circumstances.

Daniel Mifsud’s body of work, entitled Derealisation Explored Through Drawing, seeks to represent a distorted reality, gathering inspiration from the depths of the human psyche and embodying thoughts and emotions through drawing. He embodies Andre Breton’s ‘pure psychic automatism’ in order to parallel with the fast-moving society that we live in. The lack of a mediative time element allows the artist to work based on intuition, and thus introspectively explores the borders of abstraction and reality, resultantly tapping into the realm that sits in-between.

Essentially, Mifsud’s work underlines that it is easy to get caught in the automatic loop of society. However, at times one must break away from generic societal understanding to truly discover oneself.

'Untitled' by Daniel Mifsud

Andrew Inguanez embarks on a deeply self-reflective journey, whereby he introspectively looks into his own truth which has been lost because of societal expectations. Honesty With Wilder Gaze aims to understand his journey in breaking away from the heteronormative and patriarchal expectations and ideals related to gender, identity and sexuality. Through his multiple sources of inspiration, he ultimately utilises his art to embrace his queerness and femininity, the qualities that make him who he is as an individual. Essentially, this acknowledges that the reality about truth is that it is not necessarily a singular unified truth. Rather, these artists each offer their own understanding through their process of uprooting.

When dealing with the complex notion of introspection, one must not automatically assume a singular perspective, but rather, a multifaceted realm of various truths. Through this body of work, Up/Root reflects upon each of the artists’ understandings of introspection, intention and truth, through which they ultimately invite the viewer to engage, understand, reflect and discuss their own respective universal experiences.

Up/Root is a collective exhibition by the final year Masters in Teaching and Learning Students, and is currently on show at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq in Mqabba until July 9.