Dates 19th November – 12th December 2021
Curator: Melanie Erixon
AĦMAR ĦELU W'QARES
Artist Statement
This project represents a pause rather than an artistic breakthrough, born from a period of stillness that followed profound personal experiences of life and death. Within two years, the artist witnessed both the conception of his daughter and niece, and his grandfather’s terminal illness — events that brought him face-to-face with the fragility and paradox of existence. This emotional turbulence, balancing joy and sorrow, led to deep reflection on the universality of human experience.
The project explores how birth, death, and everything in between are both deeply personal and yet shared across generations. Art becomes the bridge between past and present, connecting individual memory with collective human consciousness. Inspired by this idea, most of the works are reinterpretations of historical paintings that symbolise humanity’s continuous cycle of pain, faith, and renewal. Pieces such as The Flagellation of Christ, The Risen Christ, and The Apotheosis evoke the artist’s childhood memories of sacred rituals and family gatherings, while The Birth of Venus and The Romans in their Decadence express the duality of love and moral decay — the two faces of the human condition.
The exhibition’s unifying element is the colour red, representing blood, passion, divinity, danger, and life itself — as well as the artist’s daughter, Scarlett. It acts as a thread binding joy and loss, hope and resignation.
The artworks, executed in mixed media on canvas, combine black pencil, white chalk, and oil paint, inspired by hand-coloured vintage photographs. Their grainy surfaces evoke nostalgia, while subtle distortions bridge past and present. The large-scale paintings fill Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, immersing viewers in a glowing red atmosphere meant to mirror the artist’s inner world. This project, deeply personal yet universally resonant, meditates on memory, mortality, and the timeless continuity of human experience.