There are some artists who are defined by a style or a theme. For example, Italian 20th-century artist Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) is often categorised by his still-lifes that occupy a huge percentage of his oeuvre. His landscapes, although bearing that same sensitive, otherworldly palette, plays second fiddle to his overwhelming oeuvre of depictions of the same mundane vessels in different spatial configurations.

Similarly, Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla’s (1863-1923) depictions of sun-drenched beaches, playgrounds for a humanity that lets loose and forgets the gloominess of city life, is the primary theme that comes to mind when this Spanish giant is mentioned.

Maltese artist Henry Falzon’s current exhibition at Camilleri Paris Mode, titled Bottled Time, explores themes that the local art-loving public has grown to expect of him – oils and pastels that celebrate the transparency of the sea, the life beneath it, often from a very high vantage point that glorifies the vastness of this huge body of water that surrounds our country and that is integral to our way of life. The sea has been a protagonist in our country’s history, a stage for sea battles which have shaped us as a nation.

In post-Independence days, it was marketed as a lure for the nascent tourism industry, the limpid, crystal waters, the blue vast skies, the caramel sandy beaches – certainly a world of difference from the mainly greyish foreboding skies and seas of the northern hemisphere, the target of the mainstay of our country’s economy. Nowadays, it sets the sad scenario for the many sorrowful ordeals of migration from the shores of the huge African continent.

However, Falzon’s artistic journey didn’t originate from colourful pastels and oils. “I’ve started out in the 1990s with black and white photography. Being self-taught in this medium, I casually experimented with its possibilities to express myself,” the artist observes. Essentially, the absence of colour defines it; however, it provides a world of tonalities.

“It is a great tutor for those who want to learn about expressing themselves through art without a formal academic education,” Falzon continues. “Black and white photography is a teacher par excellence. It removes distractions and con­tami­nants while showing you ways forward in composition, balance, tonality. The eventual transition to colour was therefore a much easier process. I’m revisiting my photographic work of the 1990s as far as the figurative dimension in my work goes.”

The advent of digital photography in the late 1990s made life much easier for the budding photographer. No wastage of precious film figured in the equation; one could make out what the end product would look like instantaneously, while doing away with the restrictive mores of a darkroom or a commercial photographic laboratory.

“I was feeling that I had to transition to the digital format, to colour, as I was finding that the traditional film medium was becoming too archaic. Being still very young, I felt it was time to set myself on a new adventure and try new things,” Falzon reminisces.

“However, the first results weren’t that great, as colour has nothing to do with black and white.” Moreover, the early days of digital black and white photography were nothing to write home about as the technology was still very rudimentary. He regards that the leap to digital photography was a regressive one for him.

The early 2000s found Falzon discovering oils and pastels, thereby building up confidence and knowledge, in order to exploit the two mediums to his heart’s delight. “I started exhibiting about five years ago, when I was confident that my work was of a sufficient level there was a build-up that could be shared publicly,” he says.

He says that the art-loving public might erroneously assume that his work belongs ultimately to this relatively short span of years. “It entailed a learning process of 25 years that brought me to where I am today, not just five years,” he points out.

This ongoing learning process has offered directions and itineraries. Watercolour and oil were the first painterly mediums of choice, but Falzon feels that he’s becoming more in tune with the dry mediums of charcoal and pastel, although he affirms that oil is more conducive to working in larger dimensions.

On narratives of memory

The choice of title for the exhibition Bottled Time does not relate to a repression, it is not a metaphor for negative containment, for bottled-up feelings.

The launchpad is memory evoked by a photographic image, indeed madeleine moments for the artist. “No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me,” Marcel Proust recounts in his famous novel In Search of Lost Time.

The taste and smell of the madeleine cupcake had released bottled-up memories originating from his childhood, a prosaic flicker from the past released the most poetic of sensations.

These images may be 20 years old, archived in a family album, a compendium that includes many other images documenting events that happened so long ago- Henry Falzon

Falzon interprets photographs that he chooses from his albums of photographs as paintings. “These images, whether photographs or paintings, are snapshots that capture feelings.” Maybe, unlike late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who opined that photographs capture a moment that’s gone forever and that cannot be reproduced, the Maltese artist attempts to release the memory from its bottle, reinvigorate it by letting it breathe, just as one does to vintage wines, and then relish the taste.

“These images may be 20 years old, archived in a family album, a compendium that includes many other images docu­menting events that happened so long ago,” Falzon says. “I can uncork nostalgia, and relish it like a fine vintage. I could ascertain if that memory is a dry one on the palate or otherwise. It’s like having time bottled in a painting.” He ‘adulterates’ the vintage by intervening on the image, adding colour and drama to the composition.

Drone photography is another technological aid that he exploits. The elevated perspective is another fingerprint of Falzon, embellishing the seascapes with a silent aloofness that one finds in surveillance war photography, how­ever without the bellicose foreboding, in which persons are somehow almost dehumanised to ant-like proportions.

The involvement of the viewer in the narrative is of paramount importance for Falzon. “When I start working on a piece, it evolves into a story which can be taken at face value. The colours, the tonalities, the chromatic temperature are aids for the viewer to build his own personal narrative.” He adds a title to the piece as a launching pad, a synopsis that provides ingredients for the viewer to nurture his or her own narrative.

“The less thematic information I provide, the more the viewer can roam freely, using his or her own baggage to render it autobiographical,” he continues. “The nautical theme is very much after my heart, a large percentage of my work is devoted to the maritime; being surrounded by the sea, it is natural for me to explore such a theme.”

We’ve all been to the beach, enjoyed carefree days with family and friends and probably also have photographic albums documenting these excursions. So, a Falzon painting can easily provoke a madeleine moment in most of us, as intended by the artist.

Exuberance vs introspection

The choice of works for Bottled Time centre around Falzon’s colourful oeuvre but may also include some of the charcoals. Being an archipelago of small islands, the sea affects our country’s ethos and identity of colourful isolation.

The charcoals, some of which have not been included in this collection, are very introspective, evoking comparisons with the foreboding temperament of Belgian symbolist Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) via introspective mood and circular repetition of landscape motifs. The portraits in charcoal are slightly reminiscent of works in the same medium of French pointillist Georges Seurat (1859-1891).

However, Falzon maintains that his work is not governed by a manifesto, symbolist or otherwise. For him, charcoal is black pastel, although he admits that the mood evoked is totally different. He modulates moods through monochromaticity, starting out from a reference image that has nothing to do with the finished work. “I’m more renowned for my colourful work with a strong pop factor and this exhibition of more than 30 pieces celebrates that,” he points out.

“However, I have to admit that I feel freer when I use charcoal.”

“The message I want to relay is one of pleasure to be experienced by the eyes of the beholder, and for allowing for full capability of interpretation and its moulding into a personal biography,” Falzon concludes.

Bottled Time, hosted by Camilleri Paris Mode, Rabat, Malta, runs from April 17 to May 6. Consult the venue’s Facebook page for opening hours. The artist can be contacted at www.henryfalzon.com and the studio is always open, although by appointment.