A new exhibition, Fragmented Sculptures of an Island Coast by Alex Attard, has just opened at Marie Gallery 5 in Tigné, Sliema. It features a selection of limited-edition works taken from the publication Exposure published last year in collaboration with Kite group.
Fragmented Sculptures of an Island Coast is an eight-year-long journey documenting the interface where land meets the sea. Weathered and worn, the sculpted rock face stands as silent witness to the passage of time, reminding us of the beauty that emerges from impermanence.
Attard is a Malta-based art and architecture photographer. His aesthetic varies from the stark and minimal, to quasi abstract, to figurative. He prefers to develop his work in series, in an attempt to scrutinise and explore a subject as extensively as possible.
He is best known as the author of the visual essays The Overlooked Performance and Parallel Existences. The former chronicles the unconscious behaviour of workers, their inadvertent gestures and pictorially abstract formations beneath the surface of Renzo Piano’s parliament in Valletta.
Attard is a Malta-based art and architecture photographer
The Parallel Existences series conceives and suggests alternative identities to restore hope to never-before-seen centuries-old manuscripts irretrievably damaged during the war in 1942.
A portfolio of photographs from both these essays now form part of the national art collection of Malta.
Parallel Existences is also the subject of a book published by the Kite Group.
Attard’s work has been featured in several high-end shows and projects, including participation in the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale with Architecture Project, with whom he also collaborated on a group exhibition in Paris, titled Reasonable Dreams, while also having participated in the 2015 Mdina Contemporary Art Biennale.
His work has been published in various international art and design magazines, and trendsetting platforms, such as Archdaily, iGNAT, ElleDecor and others. In 2018, together with architects Konrad Buhagiar and Erica Giusta, he contributed with his photographs to the book Spontaneous (Libria, Italia).
Fragmented Sculptures of an Island Coast, curated by Maria Galea, runs at Marie Gallery 5 until September 25.