A collective titled Reflections and Shadows of the Soul – An Introspective Experience allows the participating artists freedom of expression as they are not restricted by an underlying theme. The variety of media used together with the spectrum of artistic styles reflect this untethered aspect of such a collective. Collectives lack that cohesion, that structure, therefore, favouring a measure of abandon and thematic improvisation. This is reflected by the DNA of this group of artists, chosen by curator Rosanna Ciliberti, to showcase art that doesn’t necessarily identify them.

One such example is Sue Gregory, who is more well-known for her Long People Series, elongated humorous caricatures of groups of people who are well-acquainted with each other, sometimes belonging to one family. For this collective, Gregory is exhibiting a watercolour whose title, Old Abandoned Homes Were Once Beautiful Dreams, refers to the words of sociology professor George Kiser.

Old Abandoned Homes Were Once Beautiful Dreams by Sue Gregory

The spirit of the restrained earthy palette of American artist Andrew Wyeth is evoked. Wyeth’s depictions of both exteriors and interiors of houses are a celebration of New England vernacular architecture. Gregory chooses lowly architecture of an unspecified geographical location to illustrate the sadness of abandoned buildings, once the pride and glory of their owners. It could be regarded as a reflection on the metaphysics of fragile life itself. “Ruins puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth,” British philosopher Alain de Botton acknowledged. 

The Worst Feeling Isn’t Being Lonely, It’s Being Forgotten by David Debono

David Debono’s The Worst Feeling Isn’t Being Lonely, It’s Being Forgotten somehow relates to Gregory’s above-mentioned painting. Debono, using his usual earthy palette, painfully represents utter monochrome loneliness in the face of personal circumstances. The death of loved ones leaves people helpless; however, being forgotten leaves them more perplexed and marooned in their own world. 

In this painting, the simple act of having a meal has been deprived of its communal quality, of exchanging ideas, of living. The woman is enveloped in a permeating aura of sacred recollection, devoting all her attention to her soup, its texture, its temperature, its fumes.

Having a meal and stretching it as much as possible achieves special importance by occupying some of the elastic emptiness of hours stretching forever. It is in such moments when being forgotten takes on special agonising relevance.

Maria Cutajar’s Statum Naturae (which can be translated as State of Nature) evokes Anselm Kiefer’s desolate landscapes where nature is in a cycle of flux and decomposition, smarting in the aftermath of human intervention and war. The same tactile quality is present in Cutajar’s painting enmeshed in a Kiefer-like desolateness; not loneliness as that is a condition of being human. There is also a Caspar David Friedrich romantic dimension to Cutajar’s landscape, in the beauty of nature left to its own devices, as well as a Soutine-like distortion that adds to the drama of this magnificent painting. 

Mesmerising by Roberta Zammit Cutajar

The theme of solitude is carried forward in Roberta Zammit Cutajar’s painting Mesmerising. The girl in the window is enthralled by the world around her, studying the beautiful elegiac landscape shrouded in some penumbral dusk. The moonlight strikes her body with a silvery sheen, the source of light just suggested as lying somewhere outside our perspective. 

Nature speaks to us in a language that only poets and artists can decipher – stanzas and verses of animal sounds, creaks, howling wind, which could subside to a sibilant breeze, while the cosmic harmonies of the seasons are determined by the constellations high above. Natural beauty is enchanting when we have time to wind down at night, open our windows and let the nocturnal magic in to enlighten us.

Return to Innocence by Dave Calleja

Dave Calleja’s sculpture Return to Innocence reduces volumes to geometrical shapes in an exercise of minimalism. The billowing wind is masterfully captured as a frozen moment in time as it plays with the girl’s dress and lifts the kite heavenwards, its string taut, menacing to find liberty by snapping itself away from its tethers. This artwork is a paean to liberty, to freedom, to a return to childhood carefree innocence. This is a joyful sculpture, the colour evoking sunny days, brimming with adventure and discovery – the realm of a childhood that is no more. There is attention in geometrical precision as alternate angles are defined through the connection of kite with girl, thus promoting mathematical harmony.

“This collective boasts a mix of artists, young and old, established ones and newcomers”

The choice of the title, Return to Innocence, could also be a nod to electronic/New Age music group Enigma’s 1994 release bearing the same name, whose music video depicted a man’s life in reverse, starting with his death and ending with his baptism, an absolute return to innocence.

Layers of Me by Joan Burlò

The composition of Joan Burlò’s Layers of Me evokes the concentric annual rings of tree trunks. Every year or so, depending on the climate where the tree is situated, a layer is added, increasing the girth of the trunk. Through a technique known as dendrochronology, researchers are able to ease out the biography of the tree through the colour and thickness of different strata. A stylised face overlying what appears like concentric rings could be read as Burlò’s self-portrait. One needs to price away the layers to get to the core of what the artist is all about and release her spirit from the constraints of her prison, rather like the dryads of Greek mythology.

Under My Skin by Stephen Saliba

Stephen Saliba’s Under My Skin is somewhat reminiscent of American photographer’s Andres Serrano’s 1992 Cibachrome The morgue (Rat poison suicide II). The unseeping wound in Saliba’s painting is set amid a landscape of parched, leathery, pink epidermis. Blood has dried up, leaving a gaping vaginal wound as a metaphorical entryway to the dermis and what lies beneath the artist’s skin.

The first-person possessive pronoun in the title of the work, ‘my’, refers to life still happening. In Serrano’s work, the wound is like an exit portal through which life has relentlessly seeped out, rather like blood, in the solitude of suicide.

This collective boasts a mix of artists, young and old, established ones and newcomers. In the above-mentioned works, solitude and loneliness appear to be common recurrent themes. However, the other participating artists, including Rosanna Ciliberti, Joanne Dounis, Ray Forder-Stent, Alfie Gatt, Franco Navarro, Mauro Pace Parascandalo, David Saliba, Mark Schembri, Valerio Schembri and Rosette Sciriha, offer alternative themes and expressions the art-loving public is invited to explore at the gallery Art by the Sea, in Senglea.

Reflections and Shadows of the Soul, curated by Rosanna Ciliberti and hosted by Senglea’s Art by the Sea, runs until March 18. Log on to the event’s Facebook page for opening hours.