Curated by Joseph Agius, the show, featuring artists Ryan Falzon, Madeleine Gera, Anna Grima and Paul Scerri, is a collaboration between Times Events, Bureau Iniala and Maria Galea of Marie Gallery5

“Context is key” goes the clichéd axiom. One wonders if such a saying has any rele­vance in a contemporary world that has somewhat lost its key of orientation, amid man-induced and natural cataclysms. Context gives purpose and order through a standardisation of parameters that are supposed to have withstood the test of time. However, recent events have altered that dynamic, and artistic expression has seen changes, some of which are meant to shock, others conceived out of a requirement to be heard and seen at all costs.

Context as an exhibition title choice might at first glance appear rather simplistic, generic and clichéd; however, the choice is a reflection on this 21st-century disorientation. Everyone seems to be clutching at straws, trying to find new contexts amid a backdrop of ideological, religious and political vacuums.

Lightness of Being by Anna Grima

As these four artists have so engagingly done, we need to shake ourselves from our slumber and apathy, and recalibrate our internal magnets to follow some semblance of direction, wherever we can find it.

The four artists, Ryan Falzon, Madeleine Gera, Anna Grima and Paul Scerri, were not limited to a pre-determined theme. The world is stuttering, everything seems to have lost its orientation and its compass, directionless and in a state of soup-like disordered flux. The world screams out for a recalibration, for getting a grip, for finding a way out of this morass of wars, climate change, and ugly news headlines that decontextualise almost anything that is human; in fact, it is actually the stability provided by context, by objectivity, that we are sorely missing. This led to the choice of ‘context’ as the exhibition title, explained curator Joseph Agius.

The Pelican Brings its Dead Young Back to Life with its Own Blood by Ryan Falzon

Ryan Falzon’s art, during the years’ long pandemic hiatus, grew more introspective as he reflected on domestic open spaces such as yards, terraces, rooftops – environments, inner sanctums, that offered a measure of delivery from the claustrophobic clutches of the living room, bedroom and kitchen, as well as from the apocalyptic images of people dying in hospitals and daily negative statistics, accompanying the path of the pandemic.

His works in Context explore contemporary existence and its various aspects. Using a richly chromatic palette, he investigates themes such as duality, narrative, social media, human interaction, and existential conditions.

La Malavita by Ryan Falzon

The artist integrates compositional elements seamlessly in a cauldron of text, symbols, images and colour, suggesting a Cy Twombly-like vernacular, a language, a poetic ambiguity; maybe Falzon is suggesting that we have lost the capacity of comprehension in the babble of these times. These gestural works draw on various stimuli emanating from the mundane, pop culture and urban myths.

The artist remarks that his paintings invite contemporary interpretations of historical references, knowledge, and symbolism, while fostering self-awareness and introspection. Their enigmatic nature encourages viewers to forge their own associations and interpretations, empowering them to engage with the artwork on a personal level.

The Plague Doctor by Madeleine Gera

Madeleine Gera’s repertoire as a figurative artist is exceptional. Her narratives are autobiographical although she often refers to art history and mythology as launching pads for her artistic expression. She is well-known for her depictions of indoor spaces, the safety in familiar, domestic spaces as evoked in the paintings of artists such as Pierre Bonnard and Fairfield Porter.

In their own ways, the four artists, through their independent creative searches, reflect on different issues and contexts

For Context, Gera is presenting a series of paintings whose narrative is quite disconcerting and not at all straightforward. A member of the animal or plant kingdom accompanies each hu­man protagonist, and one questions if these creatures act as familiars that one comes across in esoteric and Gothic literature or if they symbolise a human attribute.

Lily, Lily Love by Madeleine Gera

There is a beauty in repose, a quest for Renaissance balance, in all of Gera’s works for this exhibition. However, her monumental The Plague Doctor, her only exhibit with numerous ‘human’ protagonists, seemingly juxtaposes different eras with its references to pestilence, both recent and historical.

The plague mask worn by one of the human protagonists and the various symbolic references (perhaps temporal pride is depicted as a peacock) endow this work with an otherworldly Chagallian aspect, as a winged personage lifts off, escaping the human verbal exchange going on in the foreground.

Gera’s paintings are a heartfelt plea for humanity to re-evaluate its attitude to the natural world and to truly understand that this planet is its home, rather than looking heavenwards in search of divinities that are beseeched to deliver it from its shortcomings. What humanity should focus on is to love its fellow creatures with whom it is sharing habitats and life.

Verdant Spaces by Anna Grima

The abstracts of Anna Grima, poetic and ephemeral, suggest weightlessness and escape at a time in which everything is weighed down by depressive stories. They are a paean to joy, to light, to new adventures. Each painting suggests different chromatic vistas which we are invited to explore.

Reminiscent of the abstract work of second-generation abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, Grima’s artistic voice for this exhibition is a gossamer one of beauty in frailty, in intimations of nature left to venture on its own, in floating worlds, marine or otherwise, far removed from the humanly mundane and irksome.

They are representations of pure colour and form, flourishes that one finds in British artist Ivon Hitchens’ attempts to abstract the Sussex landscape. It is a human idiosyncrasy to bring order to seemingly disparate elements and to find the figurative in the abstract. Grima, also a consummate figurative artist, is not inviting us to endeavour in such an exercise; rather, like a poet using free verse, through the freedom of shape and saturated hues, she is exploring a poetic aesthetic away from the incarceration of academic painterly structure.

Statement by Paul Scerri

Paul Scerri comments on humanity amid its vulnerabilities, its doubts and its redeeming factors. The human figure is central to these works, to which the artist adds symbols, glazes and texture to relay a message; one that relates to the stereotypes in Maltese society whose expectations loads individuals with excess baggage, precipitating their voyage into despondency and loneliness.

The words of artist Jamie Wyeth hold true for Scerri: “People I pick to paint –it’s not their physiognomy but what they’re about. You have to know everything about them. Otherwise, it’s just skins.” Although possessing anonymous facial features, Scerri very relevantly titles the works, thus imparting an identity and context that immediately categorises the characters portrayed. The unfocused gaze disconcerts the viewer and conjures up empathy, an impulse to hug the piece like a forlorn child, to shelter it from being cruelly judged for its predicament.

There is certainly a caricatural aspect in Scerri’s work but there is no attempt at mockery. These are personages wrapped up in their own silent and contemplative world. Scerri represents them as abandoned to their lot, knowingly accepting a fate that cannot be shaken off. The ceramist captures their essence, and uniquely and masterfully recreates a likeness, a type of character, that runs more than skin-deep.

In their own ways, the four artists, through their independent creative searches, reflect on different issues and contexts, which range from the social to the political, from the introspectively personal to the purely aesthetic.

Context, curated by Joseph Agius, is a collaboration between Times Events, Bureau Iniala and Maria Galea of Marie Gallery5. The exhibition is open until September 5. It is supported by the Malta Tourism Authority and James Catering Services.