The Road Less Travelled

Art is a journey of self-discovery, says Gozitan painter Chris Saliba, and needs to be pursued even if it takes you down less familiar paths. Here he talks about the need to keep questioning, be truthful - and the constant search for the new

Christopher Saliba is late. I look at my watch again. In fact, 15 minutes late. I cast another look around Nadur square, with its late morning light and Saturday morning bustle of activity when the young artist arrives, looking rushed and apologetic. So I follow him through the town’s winding streets, further and further away from the centre, until the light seems to get brighter, sounds seem to fade and the atmosphere becomes more peaceful and serene.

Chris explains the reason for his delay - he was painting when he looked at the watch, which indicated that there was still half an hour to go before our designated meeting time. When he looked again, he was already five minutes late. Young, intense and full of a nervous charge, this sense of complete absorption seems typical of the young artist. As we enter his studio, his paintings, with their vibrant colours and careful compositions, seem to leave no doubt as to his complete raptness when working on them. They pulse and vibrate within their frames, demanding nothing less than complete attention.

“As you can see,” smiles Chris, “the notion of the painter working on a single painting with an easel and palette is a myth.” Large and colourful abstracts rest against the walls, propped up against tables, or lie on the ground. Swirls and colours run through them, indicating a kinship between the paintings. Smudges of paint are everywhere, while open jars and bottles give a sense of immediacy. It is simply not possible for these paintings to have been done slowly. “I never work on one painting at any one time,” says Chris. “While one layer is drying I am working on another, which is why colours and themes will run through a set.”

This working method might lie behind the young artist’s prolificness which is remarkable by any standards. In the years since he has started exhibiting for the public, in fact, the young artist has held an exhibition a year. Currently, aside from working on the abstracts, he is also holding an exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta, entitled Roots of an Island.

At the time of our conversation the paintings for this are hanging in the house’s upper floor, which the young artist uses as an art gallery of sorts. We scan one painting after another, as he explains the various locations and techniques used for each one. The series is composed of a set of semi-abstract paintings, showing typical locations in Malta, Gozo and Comino. But none of the paintings is transparently representative: vibrant colours reflect feelings and states of mind and the artist’s experimentation with texture suggests the paintings’ depth and layers.

“Texture became my language in my previous exhibition,” says Chris, “and I have taken this further in this exhibition.” The paintings in fact include grains of sand to indicate roughness or even pieces of sack which are painted over and incorporated into the paintings. Reds, deep purples, oranges and pinks abound, creating rich and beautiful contrasts, and transforming the paintings’ language.

 “I am not after the creation of a replica,” says the young artist. “My state of mind, mood or feelings always intervene between a scene and my painting of it.”

The most important thing for an artist, he says, is not to create a faithful representation but to be true to himself, without pandering after an audience. “I never paint with an audience in mind,” he says, “I simply work, and then the audience follows.”

Fortunately his occupation as a teacher provides him the financial freedom to embark on any artistic experiments he is interested in, he says. His recent forays into installations, for instance, were never intended as commercial products, but as stages in a process of self-discovery which never ends. “Art is a journey of self-discovery,” says the young artist, “and because a true artist must never stop questioning his own truths, it is everlasting.”

It was during his studies at the Accademic di Belle Arti in Perugia, Italy, that his artistic journey began in earnest, he says. There he started developing his own personal idiom which immediately found a following when he returned to Gozo.

Recently, he has embarked on a new path on this artistic journey, he says, with a project of video art carried out in collaboration with his brother Victor John Saliba, an IT University student. The two brothers have produced a three-minute piece of video art which explores the relations between identity and technology.

In the video, a computer keyboard, other computer accessories and handprints are incorporated in a massive and heavily textured white surfaced wooden panel. Next to the installation, a TFT panel shows a cyclical projection of a hand pressing against the screen. Delicate and gentle movements done with the palm of the hand alternate with images of the hand clenching itself into a fist, and beating violently against the screen, as if to break out.

The installation attempts to highlight the conflict generated by modern technology, says Chris. And there is a further dimension to it, he says. For although the hand appears real it is in fact computer-generated, questioning the boundaries between the virtual and the real which seem to blur on the internet.

This is a far cry from his early serene landscapes, I point out, does it represent a new departure? “Well, it is important for an artist to exploit the potential of newer media,” says Chris, “since, depending on what he is trying to say, they can convey stronger or subtler messages.” Painting is not the only interesting and powerful artistic medium, he points out.

Installation art is becoming more widespread in Gozo, he says, but is still not widely appreciated, often giving way to a predilection for traditional representational paintings which tend to feed on the same formulae. “Sometimes the most important thing in a work of art is the idea,” says Chris. Artists should always be open to these, he says, and sometimes even accidents can be pathways to discovery.

Of course as his prolificness shows, he is never short of ideas. Meanwhile, he takes his art seriously and earnestly, producing only works of the highest level of honesty. “Often I will work till late or wake up very early to finish works in time for a commission or an exhibition,” he says, looking determined. “One should never shy away from a challenge.”

Sandra Aquilina, in "Let's Gozo", Issue No. 10, 2007

Of Time and Timelessness

Christopher Saliba’s painting has come a long way since October of last year, 2005 when he exhibited a set of paintings titled ‘Silent Places’ in Gozo. Those paintings were landscapes in the conventional style representing recognisable landscapes in Gozo and Comino. They were followed up in May of this year, 2006, by another exhibition ‘Impressions’ in Malta at Cleland and Souchet where his style continued to be conventional. The brochure for the first exhibition described him as a “passionate landscape painter,” fascinated by his native land but interested not in “mere natural reproductions,” but in creating ‘atmosphere’; as the name of the exhibition implies one of contemplative silence related to the “mysterious and the primordial.” The brochure also described him as a ‘romantic’ and an expressionist, thereby placing him within a particular strand of modernism.

    Not much in the artist’s outlook has changed substantially since then. Saliba still sees himself as an expressionist inspired by natural forms, particularly those around him, interested in ‘transcending’ them, in creating ‘atmosphere’, in imbuing them with his own meaning rather than replicating them faithfully on a canvas. What appears to have changed, and radically, in the very few months since May is his style; the landscape painter has turned abstract, a predictable step in his evolution as an artist. What may not have been so predictable is the speed with which this transformation has taken place. But, in fact, the artist has long been familiar with the idiom of abstract expressionism, has obviously studied the works of its main protagonists closely, and at first hand, and has been quietly working away at it for the past two years or so.

    In this new exhibition the theme he engages with is ‘Time and Timelessness’. The works exhibited are undated because they are the product of a developing project that occurred over those two years not, as one would have supposed on the evidence of his exhibitions, of some short energetic burst of painting. They are hung in chronological sequence in the exhibition, as a series, in order to make explicit the trajectory the project took, the development of the basic concept that informs them; the relation, as the name of the exhibition indicates, between the temporal, more or less what is fixed, and the timeless, what is still open, which the paintings try to explore. The impression one receives in following the sequence is that initially the artist was more attracted to the studied contemplative approach with which a Rothko (well aware of time) would explore the theme than to the dynamic action painting of a Pollock dedicated exclusively to the timeless. He needs, as he says himself, to be able to step back from the painting frequently to work out what’s going on in it. I say ‘initially’ because the later work in the series shows a more than tentative move towards using some of the techniques of action painting, especially the controlled running of the paint on the canvas – towards Pollock.

    ‘Going on,’ is the operative word in abstract art. The abstract work doesn’t represent. Its meaning, if it has one, lies within itself. It narrates nothing but its own story. Perhaps a good way to describe it is as pure energy, even when it is not the obvious energy of an action painting but the more subdued energy of a Rothko. The abstract artist’s energy comes from a restless interest in exploration, not simply of the material but of the conceptual also. Both are recognisable feature of these paintings displayed by Saliba. The sense of excitement the artist experiences in uncovering new forms, creating a new iconography for himself, a new language of communication with the viewer, is evident in the freshness of the works. The earlier in the series show a continuing dependence on the colours that defined his landscape work; red, blue, and molten ochres, but the later ones become more experimental as his palette opens up with his confidence.  

    Conceptually, Saliba explores the tension between the static and the dynamic in nature, between permanence and change. Every step in his earlier work in the series is deliberate; square and oblong patches form the basic iconography – not geometric and precise in the way of a Mondrian but plastic and fuzzy, thickly textured, and enriched with scratchings that are patterned in diverse and studied ways, encouraging close scrutiny. The issue to be solved in this kind of painting is that of movement, of how to create it within the composition. The earlier works of the series feature predominantly dark colour combinations closely graded and the composition is dense. The movement here is obtained with sweeping curves, sweeps of colour transversing the canvas horizontally, connected in some cases with thick diagonally running paint that tightens the composition.

    The earlier works with the darker brooding shades and turgid forms and structures are weighed down by the temporal, the later works are freer as Saliba breaks out and becomes more adventurous. One sees a shift in these later works towards lighter more transparent colours, looser compositions; a move towards the timeless. A lot more is going on in these later paintings than in the earlier. The freedom of the composition reflects an artist growing more daring and confident. It marks a significant and promising development in his style. Suddenly he seems to have discovered the value of contrast, of volume and space and the outcome is a more dynamic product and a richer iconography.          

Kenneth Wain
10/06

The following article, published on the 17th of April 2005, is reproduced by kind permission of The Sunday Times of Malta.

Just six months ago I had occasion to review a photographic exhibition related to a number of installations put up by young Gozitan artist Christopher Saliba which was held at the Banca Giuratale in Victoria . That was in fact Saliba's sixth one-man exhibition since 2001, with five of them held in Gozo and one in London . I only managed to see one of them.

Saliba is now back with his first solo exhibition in Malta which is taking place at Cleland & Souchet in Portomaso with a collection of 28 paintings in mixed media, the work of the past year. The overall title is Realms of the Spirit, thereby meaning deeper than what emerges from mere physical observation and analysis.

Born in 1975, Christopher |Saliba, a teacher by profession who lives and has his studio in Nadur, spent four years (1997-2001) at the Accademia di Belle Arti Pietro Vannucci in Perugia on an Italian government scholarship. While in Perugia he participated at a number of venues in several collective exhibitions, roughly on a yearly basis, with installations, paintings and body art performances.

The point of departure for the majority of the present works is landscapes from his native Gozo or at times geological or man-made features. These would include the Azure Window with its reddish glow, Comino with its deadpan water and sky surfaces, Valletta , Mnajdra and Towards , these being rather conventional subjects for an artist who is still at grips with exploring the world around him. To these could be added works like Tabernacle , Icona and Altar , each eliciting a simplified allusion to aspects of the megalithic structures.

Works like Joy and Dome – in the latter case the presence of the dome is just a pictorial appendix with which to render some topographical quality to the otherwise abstract composition in its entirety – are just a mixture of square and rectangular elements which are somewhat distanced with their abstracted pattern as derived from reality, in a way reminiscent of some works by Esprit Barthet.

But it is not really the subject matter that primarily comes forward for our perception of the art of Saliba. His main concern is definitely that of having colour as the dominant and forceful characteristic with its emotive rapport.

This he intermixes with his concern for texture. It criss-crosses the territorial extent of the fields in both Spiritual Landscape and Valley, the rock-gouged pattern of Salt Pans , or even the body ‘landscape' of Reclining Nude .

This overriding interest for texture definitely runs throughout the best exhibited works. In the process it renders a more tangible dimension in his quest for exploring space on an essential flat surface.

In the long run, considering that his ultimate goal is not that of topographic depiction but that of an interaction of colour and space, it comes out naturally that abstraction is the end result. In fact, having achieved an alienation from the shackles of figurative elements, he slides into abstraction with some commendable results as happens with Sunrise , Freedom and Symphony .

Where does all this leave him at this particular stage of development? I am quite optimistic about his future prospects for I find Christopher Saliba to be an enterprising artist who is not just satisfied at his painterly approach but who is continuously seeking for a more holistic evaluation of what artistic expression means to him.

Chev. Emmanuel Fiorentino, The Sunday Times, April 17, 2005

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Christopher Saliba's forthcoming exhibition is unusual though visually striking. Recently, the artist has taken a keen interest in setting up installations at unspoilt and undeveloped natural sites around the island Sometimes, he even explored remote, steep and almost inaccessible places to make his works appear more dramatic.

The objects used were raw materials like wood and rocks as well as selected ready-made commercial artefacts. The result of these interventions are simple and geometrical arrangements inspired by classical ideals.

Mr Saliba's aim was to create an atmosphere that evokes spiritual and sublime thoughts as well as an intimate feeling of belonging with nature. Since most of these works, which the artist himself calls happenings, are usually impermanent and ephemeral, he documented them through photography.

He says that the environment became the real protagonist of his art. "Nature is no longer represented, like in painting, but presented directly to the beholder, though with a different eye and an unusual unfamiliar way of looking at things."

His prime sources of inspiration are the unique and evocative marvels of Gozo that evoke what he describes as the power of nature. Other sources of inspiration are great masters like the surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico and cinema directors like Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubric and Peter Greenway.

Through his works, Saliba tries to raise awareness about the beauty of God's creation and man's relationship with nature. He says his intention is not to transform the environment, but to make it more intimate, by manifesting its essentiality.

"Through the simplicity, the spatial clarity, the graceful harmony of forms and the essential, structural configurations that come into existence, I tried to enhance the idea of the primordial and the divine qualities of nature."

The result of this photographic work is a series of powerful images in which nature and art become one.

Mr Saliba is an established artist who spent four years at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia. From then onwards he exhibited his works several times in Italy, Malta and England. He is also a teacher of art at the School of Arts in Ghajnsielem.

This exhibition, sponsored by Bank of Valletta, is being held at the Banca Giuratale, Independence Square, Victoria, between October 2 and 14.

The following article is reproduced from the October - December 2004 issue of KULTURA 21 (no. 5), a supplement of the Sunday Times of Malta.

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