The Malta Independent on Sunday
The Green side of creativity
Palazzo de la Salle in Valletta has been the seat of the Malta Society of Arts since 1923. It is alive with activities and a pleasure to be there – even though there is no lift, essential at a certain age. But I am aware that this is not the kind of building where a lift can be installed. So I carefully walked two short flights of stairs. I have fallen once too many.
The chapel of the palazzo was renovated fairly recently and it’s opulent Sala dei Cavalieri, too, are worth a visit.
There are pieces of art everywhere and the palazzo’s patina of age, as soon as you step inside, gives it a lovely feel in an era when the building of characterless flats in concrete is all the rage.
I was there for the launch of Patrick Dalli’s latest exhibition, Landforms. It is very striking exhibition. The oil on linen canvasses, of all sizes, look stunning on a wall of cobalt gray. The Curator is Roderick Camilleri who gave us a short speech to introduce us to the exhibition.
The artist made a big step from Nude to stylised landscape. However he has always been interested in landscape, still-life and portraiture and has participated with landscape paintings in collective exhibitions in Malta and abroad over the years. Nevertheless It is almost hard to believe that this is the same artist who gave us The Human Figure (2002), Nudes (2004), Nudes (2008) and lately, in December/January, The Journey at the Museum of Archaeology which was entirely made up of nudes. So it is with good reason that Patrick has been dubbed as ‘ Master of the Nude.’
I found it to be a beautiful exhibition in which every painting is so clear and bright and self-assured. The feeling as I entered each sala was one of freshness. Landforms underlines what a varied and various painter Patrick Dalli is. The artist is not the sort whose paintings consist of dribbles and splashes of paint flung across a canvas from sticks and brushes. The paintings are meticulous and you can by no means call them ordinary. In a way they are like a series of plainly framed posters, although one, in a thick black ‘baroque’ frame, I found particulary attractive.
These landscapes appeal to us in a Malta which is overcrowded, where silence is rare, where trees and greenery are a luxury, especially in the long summer months. The general impression of this exhibition is one of peace. You want to gaze at those pristine fields and trees and feel that all is fine with the world. This exhibition shows us Patrick Dalli’s green side of his creativity. What a chameleon he is.
Landforms will remain open at Palazzo de la Salle until 11 August. Just walk in during opening hours, walk up two flights of steps and I believe you too will be happily surprised.