Tony Briffa, born in 1959, is a Maltese artist, essentially a ceramist, who lives and works in Denmark. He studied drawing, painting, ceramics and - interestingly - drama in Malta. In 1995, he was awarded the Commonwealth Foundation Fellowship in Arts & Crafts and was visiting as scholar at the Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania at Hobart. In Australia, he participated in master classes by world famous ceramists, such as Fred Olsen (USA), Peter Callas (USA), Janet Mansfield (Australia), Les Blakebrough (Australia), Robin Hopper (Canada) and Nina Hole (Denmark).
Himself a qualified pedagogue, Mr Briffa taught ceramics at the Tarġa Gap School for Art and Crafts for over 10 years and lectured ceramics at the Malta College for Art, Science and Technology. At Tarġa Gap, he organised master classes, lectures and workshops by world-renowned guests including Trudy Golley (Canada), Gaspare Cascio (Sicily), Helen Engisch (Australia) and Andrè Gavlik (Australia). Since 2003 he has been teaching ceramics at his home studio in Tåsinge, a Danish island south of Funen, at Svendborg.
Mr Briffa is a veteran of several solo exhibitions in Malta, Australia, Denmark and, recently, in Germany and of several collective ones in Italy, Russia, Malta, Denmark, the US, France, Australia and Croatia. He has designed for the stage (Brecht, Stein, Moliere, Simon and Shakespeare) and for television. It is fascinating that he sees his experiences in restoration of Maltese townhouses and farmhouses as an extension of his ceramics and stage design. In 2002, he represented Malta in the Common Ground World Project, organised by Neil Tetkowski at the United Nations in New York.
Mr Briffa may not have chosen to be born on an island but settling on Tåsinge suggests he is an islander by vocation. With an area of only 70 square kilometres and a population of under 6,200, Tåsinge is small. If I did not know Tony, I would have been justified in suspecting that - moving from a small island to an even smaller one - this artist was seeking to escape from the anguish of vastness into the safety of micro-spaces. It would also have been understandable had I also suspected that with small Malta inundated by mass-tourism he was seeking the relative serenity of the smaller Tåsinge.
Having organised his exhibition of ceramics at the Sparkasse Holstein in Trittau (June 12- July 3), however, gave me the opportunity and privilege of unique insights into the artist and his work. Although the exhibition was entitled Fuga (Maltese for the musical term fugue) and although a fugue is, literally, an escape, it is not a ħarba. The latter Maltese word suggests a running away whereas the fugue, a contrapuntal structure within which a particular melody is played in a number of voices, is a very complex and dynamic piece of music. In the fugue the music keeps returning to the main melody, transforming it. So does Mr Briffa's work. It is not an escape, it is a restless quest for variations on an original melody.
Mr Briffa's work was well received in Trittau, a thriving municipality 30 kilometres east of Hamburg. Here, Maltese art is practically unknown. Although some complain that this is a disadvantage, experience shows that it is not so.
An artist from a country little known for its contemporary art elicits curiosity and interest, an ideal condition to make a hit. On the other hand, art lovers of northern German are discerning in their quest for originality and quality.
Although the recession has not, contrary to expectations, killed the contemporary art market, buyers have become choosier.
The author is an exhibition coordinator and resides in Germany. He may be contacted at vavella05@yahoo.de.