The Malta Independent on Sunday
Willie Apap: Colour and light
An exhibition to showcase the work of Maltese painter Willie Apap is currently on show at Gozo’s il-Haġar Museum encompassing the breadth of his life and work. Apap’s paintings have scarcely been exhibited in Malta and Willie Apap: Colour and Light is only the second retrospective exhibition of his work in nearly 40 years. Lovingly curated by Maria
Cassar who has gathered together the largest collection seen in a single place, this is the first display of Apap’s works on Gozo, and the show includes many previously unseen pieces.
Much influenced by his brother, sculptor Chevalier Vincent Apap known for the Triton Fountain in Valletta, Willie Apap moved to Italy to study at Rome’s Regia Accademia di Belle Arti. He lived in Rome for most of his life, staying during WW2 for which, after the war, he was briefly held in custody in an Italian jail but later acquitted in the famous Conspiracy Trials in Malta.
This exhibition showcases the variety and evolution of Apap’s work from the traditional style of the Accademia to the 1960s when he was influenced by Cubist and other art movements. His later work was particularly rich in a spirituality evoked with “strisce”, stylised ribbons of light that add a luminosity and, often, a divinity. Apap was known to say that these strisce originated from his prison experience when sunrays passed through a high, iron-barred window of his cell bathing the walls with radiant stripes as if from a celestial source.
Although the collection on show is broad, in his heart Apap was a figurative artist although he initially made a living painting commissioned portraits. Although men make an appearance, Apap preferred to paint women from those in straitened circumstances to ladies in pearls, and he was fascinated by the bodies of dancers. His women are portrayed neither sensually nor on stage: instead they are depicted in restful repose, simply musing or in melancholic moments. Each is characterful and rich with emotion and compassion. Apap was fascinated with white, the variety of shades of white and their power, which he often teamed with cold greys and blues, yet in his
hands this combination glows with warmth: these hues and his use of rays of light became his hallmark.
The exhibition opens with the recently-discovered The Incarnation, which depicts the Holy Mother and Child surrounded by angels. It’s a perfect example of Apap’s delicacy and a gentleness within light and dark, a combination that’s typical of Apap’s work and as such almost summarises the exhibition in a single piece. Alongside, a self-portrait of Apap looks out at the visitor so each feels as if they have “met” the artist, a pleasing touch in these days of Zoom when audiences are used to seeing the face of the “speaker”. Interestingly, however, Apap often left the faces of his characters in shadow, giving the viewer the freedom to impose their own selves or emotions onto the work. Where Apap does show face, he sometimes paints their eyes black so that you cannot look deep into their souls, again encouraging the viewer to interpret the characters’ thoughts in their own way.
The first room in the exhibition, to the right, shows figures in repose, often draped with sheets for an element of modesty, and looking at the brushstrokes you can almost feel the speed with which Apap worked. It’s interesting to compare the tranquility of the dancers in Two Female Figures with The Musing Ballerina, a more edgy piece with sharper marks in which the subject appears sad and tired. “Along with Incarnation, this is one of my favourite pieces,” says Cassar. “Although people imagine ballerinas as happy performers, this portrays an artist’s life behind the scenes, the considerable challenges and long hours of practice. Apap himself appeared smart and successful but he was often sad and alone. This painting reflects the melancholy that accompanies the artist’s life.”
Apap often uses props to add an element of drama, whether a newspaper to reflect time, flowers or bottles. In one particularly unusual piece, Apap has even painted his own hand holding a cigarette in the foreground, a poignant reminder of his death from lung cancer in 1970 aged 51. It’s a cheerful painting however, with bright blue and white stripes evocative of a festa, and alongside joyful dancers rock and roll in colourful clothes in The Dance!
The exhibition also includes a room dedicated to landscape paintings for Apap also depicted the world around him. Surrounded by a verdant forest of lush greens, the viewer feels transported to a leafy Italian terrace or Brazil which Apap visited several times, and in Brazilian Flora striations of light add a mysticism to rich South American foliage. In cool contrast, and delightfully incongruous, this part of the show also includes Wintry Swedish Landscape, a snowy Nordic scene with chequered shapes, which Apap painted after one of many trips to visit a Swedish family he had befriended in Rome. Cassar tells how Apap loved the contrast in the tones of light and shade compared to his native
Mediterranean, although he had to sketch very quickly in Scandinavia because he used to find the plein air too cold! Look out for the sketch of the trees in the case in the centre of the room, a study for this painting, and the sketch of crates which relates to the neighbouring work Rubble Wall and Boxes.
Apap was a prolific sketcher and in a separate area, a series of inks on paper offer an insight into the artist’s mind and process as he doodled and experimented with shadow and cross-hatching, charcoal and pen. The face of Jesus takes centre stage, a preparatory sketch for his painting Christ in the Wilderness which, while it does not appear in this show, is in a private collection on the island.
Apap’s sacred works and portraiture appear in a finale on the museum’s upper level. The portraits range from an elderly lady represented traditionally in a heavy gold frame to the captivating and intriguing Portrait of a Lady in Blue in which Apap’s iconic style is perhaps best showcased. Look out too for A Clown in Yellow, a particularly characterful performer in his vest. With three women from Brazilian favelas – including a pregnant woman and a mother and child – who have a dignity and grace despite their difficult lives, Apap’s humanity is clear. This room also includes several Mother and Child paintings in which the Holy infant is lit by Apap’s strisce; these are gathered around the largest painting in the show, The Descent from the Cross, a dramatic and awe-inspiring work imbued with silence in which the crown of thorns speaks volumes as stripes of light and shadow remind the viewer that where there is darkness and death there is also hope.
‘Willie Apap: Colour and Light’ runs until 10October. Entry to IlHaġar Museum is free.