In a select exhibition at 59, Strait Street, Valletta, this month, there’s an opportunity to reflect upon amazing colours on easels in the upper atrium of a private palazzo and on the walls in the hallway below which together show how Rebecca Cassar sees the world.

Cassar considers herself a colourist rather than an artist, and it’s a show that exemplifies her love of colour and self-expression through abstraction. “I find abstract paintings the best way to explain my thoughts and feelings: each is almost a conversation with myself,” she smiles.

“My previous exhibition,” she continues, “had a more solemn range of colours because they were painted at a harder time in my life.” And it’s clear from the exuberance and joyful colours of Cassar’s innermost thoughts and sentiments on the canvases on show, that she finds herself in a happier place.

Rebecca Cassar

“Painting has always been my first love. The women in my family are creative and, from a very young age, I was encouraged to paint and experiment, making a mess on giant pieces of paper. Although I trained as a human rights lawyer, and I was drawn by human emotion and connections.

“My dad is a psychiatrist, and my mum is a psychologist, and so, from a young age, I was aware of my feelings and those of others, interpreting people’s reactions and reading their emotions, and it’s these that I am trying to express on canvas.”

Each painting in the show has a story. Slumber, for example, in striking greens and purples, is a depiction of Cassar’s subconscious which drifts from a dreamlike state in bubble-gum pink (I may have been influenced by Barbie, she smiles) to an inkier purple as darker thoughts creep in.

Slumber

Alongside, Inner Meadows evokes the landscape of Rebecca’s mind. This could easily be viewed as a glorious, abstracted landscape with an unrippled gold sky evocative of rich warmth, a gently swirling green made alive by purple-blue hills and a bold sweep of orange across the horizon.

Although the piece is inspired, she explains, by her proximity to Dingli Cliffs near her home where she likes to walk, and the calming effect the environment there has on her, for Rebecca, the painting speaks of the lightness of mood she projects when sometimes she has darker thoughts below the surface.

“We often don’t show what we’re really thinking,” she laughs.

Il-Ħmura ta’ Filgħodu

Cassar’s plentiful textures add life, emotion and a 3D effect, like waves, and these mixed-media elements might appear as the waves at the edge of the island, or a reminder of passing thoughts, brainwaves and the neural processes in her head, riding over the depths of emotion she feels.

“I like the ambiguity that the textures add,” she continues.

From a young age, I was aware of my feelings and those of others, interpreting people’s reactions and reading their emotions

“They could be turbulence or bursts of positive feeling. Where I have used crackle paint in darker colours, there’s a flash of colour below the surface.”

And in every painting, there’s gold, a thread that links the collection and with which she notes that there’s always good in her life. “I gild every painting with 23.5 carat gold,” she explains.

Le Baiser 1

“The gold leaf is a real challenge to use because it’s so fra­gile, yet it also symbolises an eternal strength and importance – while for me it expresses moments of peace in moments of anxiety, it’s also representative of rebirth and the renaissance.”

Le Baiser 1 shimmers with gold, inspired by Klimt’s The Kiss, several small marks in peacock blue among the expressive gilded hues reminiscent of the woman’s dress in the Klimt work, while Introspection, for which the exhibition was named, hangs on an adjacent wall, slashes of gold and orange against a dark ultramarine and tumbling white that might be water – or equally might not.

One painting stands out for its use of strong reds among the blues, greens and golds of the other works.

The title Il-Ħmura ta’ Filgħodu (Red of the Morning) refers to the old saying, ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning,’ and the piece is painted almost entirely with a range of reds from a purple-hued alizarin crimson to pink-tinged white, a brightness in the ‘sky’.

Ix-Xita Tiżfen

Look once, it’s heavy with anger perhaps; look again and it’s sizzling with the heated passion of sultry dancers.

“It could be either,” she grins. “The joy of abstracts is that they’re totally open to interpretation and you can ‘read’ them differently at different times.

I enjoy hearing what the viewer draws from each.”

“For me to use these reds, I had to push myself out of my comfort zone!” It’s also perhaps a reflection of the courageous change Rebecca made this year, to embark on a journey of self-discovery and embrace her art full time.

Introspection is open by appointment from 9am to 5pm on Monday to Friday (except public holidays) until December 29. Contact Rebecca Cassar on rebecca@rebeccacassar.com to make an appointment.