The public is cordially invited to view Victor Agius’s exhibition, currently running at Valletta Contemporary of 15, 16, 17, Triq Lvant (East Street), Valletta, until July 3.
The artist will be present at the exhibition on Friday July 2 and Saturday July 3, from 2 to 7pm, to discuss the works at his Recent Works exhibition.
Agius is a Gozitan artist whose thickly textured paintings, installations and sculptures achieve uniquely sculptural surfaces incorporating organic and earthy elements such as Gozitan blue clay, terrarossa, natural pigments, cement and other media.
Most of the works by the artist included in this collection Recent Works at Valletta Contemporary were started in November 2020 during a five-day art residency at the Gabriel Caruana Foundation in Malta.
Agius’s practice demonstrates a direct affinity with the earth and the natural elements which are clearly demonstrated in his continuous research about primitive rudiments and rituals and also man’s incessant rapport with nature, time and his own existence.
The artist resides and works a few metres away from the pre-historic sites of Ġgantija Temples and the Xagħra Stone Circle (c.3, 600 B.C.) on the island of Gozo.
He roams the island like a nomad documenting its rituals and collecting clay and earth from excavations made continuously by construction companies.
His local familiar landscape is treated as his materia prima to elicit universal existential themes.
His works deal with man’s relation with the earth and its consumption for spiritual, ritualistic and for quotidian reasons.
The Gozitan artist Victor Agius.Agius is committed to present his research in its pure form using an archaeological approach around formless matter.
In this collection, the core of Agius’s practice can be experienced through his shamanic gestures in which the primordial matter of terrarossa and clay are set in confrontation with cement and concrete which are the symbols of the modern world, exposing our fragile existence in the Anthropocene.
Agius is an artist working in sculpture, painting, video, performance and installation.
His practice demonstrates a direct affinity with the earth and the natural elements which are clearly demonstrated in his continuous research about primitive rudiments and rituals and also man’s incessant rapport with nature, time and his own existence.
Victor's works are to be found in numerous private and public collections worldwide, and in international publications.
Entrance to the exhibition is free but subject to COVID-19 measures.