Beauty can present itself in unexpected ways, and photographer Alex Attard is very keen on capturing it whatever its form. 

“One constant in my work is the value of beauty unveiled in the unexpected. I am a believer that beauty has the power to influence greatly, if not change, our world. It draws us in, it energises our senses and we can’t get enough of it,” he says. 

Attard has been enthusiastic about the medium since his 20s but did not practise much until about 15 years ago, when he decided to take it up more seriously.

Ballerina

Since then, he has put on quite a few exhibitions. These include The Overlooked Performance in 2015 – his first major exhibition –which dealt with the ephemeral art beneath the face of Renzo Piano’s parliament in Valletta. 

Later that same year, he participated in the Mdina Biennale with The Beauty of the Given Moment, an experiment in glitch photography about Italian maestro Claudio Abbato, who had just passed away. 

In 2017, he presented A Wandering Eye, a series photographed on the move while travelling in China as a guest of the China Cultural Centre together with four other artists. And a year later, he collaborated with the Notarial Archives Foundation in Valletta for a Valletta European Capital of Culture project called Parallel Existences. 

Mandevilla

This featured never-seen-before manuscripts found in their so-called “crying room” ­– a room dedicated to documents which were severely damaged during the war and the passage of time. 

His seventh solo exhibition, Out of Now – Beauty Reimagined, currently on at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq in Mqabba, presents a completely different series which focuses on and exposes the ethereal beauty of withering flowers.

Poppy Single

On seeing the 13 limited edition artworks on display, the late photographers Karl Bossfeldt (1865-1932), Irving Penn (1917-2009) and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) inevitably spring to mind. 

Attard does not dismiss their influence, especially Penn’s.

“Many a photographer has had an obsession or a flirtation with flowers in the past,” he says.

"Attard has been enthusiastic about the medium since his 20s but did not practise much until about 15 years ago, when he decided to take it up more seriously"

“The detail in Bossfeldt’s works is astonishing, very architectural and clinical in his approach. Mapplethorpe’s flowers, on the other hand, are sensual and seductive in their composition. Irving Penn’s flower portraits capture their beauty from bud to decay. I’m familiar with all these photographers and subconsciously they all weigh on my collective creativity, Penn in particular.”

The artist also reveals that this latest series started quite unexpectedly and that his two granddaughters who live in the US ‒Lily and Ivy Rose ‒ played a role in its creation.

Alex Attard

“I had photographed a lily in black and white, inspired by a Robert Mapplethorpe image which I presented to Lily as a gift and wanted to do the same for Ivy Rose. I was in this stage when I was approached my Melanie Erixon and Antoine Farrugia if I would be interested in having an exhibition at their gallery. 

“Finding myself in nature and a new project to focus on brought me into deeper contact with my surroundings and a concept started to formulate.”

Attard says that he prefers to arrive at a concept through a subject, that is deve­loped to a point that is quasi-abstract, so that it may be viewed and interpreted from multiple perspectives and thereby stimulating the viewers’ own imagination.

He further explains that the exhibition’s title, Out of Now, is a metaphor on permanence and impermanence. 

It represents creation/extinction, earthly/divine, reflection/termination. It interrupts the ‘now’, reinterprets the future and reconfigures impermanence.

“Having dazzled with their beauty at their peak, Out of Now may be viewed as a reversal of the flower’s role wherein the flower becomes the pollinator instead of the pollinated, impregnating the photographer’s psyche with their current aesthetic. 

“Consequently, these expiring blooms drifting at the edge of uncertainty are reimagined and cast onto another dimension for future retrospection,” Attard says. 

Another aspect to the exhibition is that its concept and works were also born during the COVID-19 lockdown. 

“One can feel an analogy between the times of uncertainty and the ‘end’ of our social lives with the death of these flowers, where we were all constrained to live in an ‘out of now’ moment,” he says.

Through the injection of bright colours, the artist envisions a ‘new future normal’, symbolising an emerging spirit of hope, renewal and new beginnings.

Out of Now – Beauty Reimagined is on at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq in Mqabba until November 14. Opening hours are Mondays to Saturdays from 6am to noon and on Sundays from 7am to noon. For updates, visit the gallery’s Facebook page.

A girl admiring Attard’s artworks at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq in Mqabba.