Artists and writers were always preoccupied with the existential quest. Existentialism is an important facet of post-war philosophy and its roots are traced way back to mid-19th century Europe mainly in the works of the precursors, Kierkegaard and later Nietzsche and Heidegger. But I think the greatest impact on post-World War II American and European artists was the philosophical arguments posed by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that "man alone is responsible for his fate, which he has to make and re-make for himself". As a cultural movement in modern art we find a whole list of existential artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, William de Kooning, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Alberto Giacometti, and the more recent Iwakawa Yukihiro, who expressed subjective concepts such as dread, anxiety, nothingness, alienation and the absurd.
Dustin Cauchi is a young Maltese artist and a newcomer in the Maltese art scene. His works express a particular existentialist philosophy. Currently he is showcasing a series of paintings entitled Ix- U Jien, which means "nothingness and the self". This is his first personal exhibition, which is being held at the Loggia of the Fine Arts Museum. Most of the works are executed in monochromatic colours, mainly based on light and dark blues and greys. In most works we find one central image which is that of a face of an archetypal human emerging from a hollow, or in other words a face taking shape from central cosmic matter. Some paintings also represent a sort of a cosmic void or a kind of "cloudscapes without any reference to human forms. Although Mr Cauchi affirms that he did not work directly on a theme, the development of the work and the final result convey an existentialist statement.
"The paintings narrate a coming into being, a birth, or in some cases a rebirth. The paintings are charged with all the violence of birth, of creation, and never of destruction. In this work I played with familiarisation and defamiliarisation, between image and spectator. So in some cases this nothingness reaffirmed an existential status quo in the spectator, and in other cases the spectator is exposed to this dimension of nothingness, maybe, for the first time through the work," he states.
In Mr Cauchi's work, certainly "nothingness" is being represented in some kind of form taking shape. It is the "nothingness" as a non being that comes to "be" through human consciousness.
Mr Cauchi, is also a final year student in theatre studies and philosophy at the University of Malta. He started to show his work in collective art exhibitions some time ago; worth mentioning Scaremongering, a collective exhibition organised by a group of young talented artists and which was held in an old house of character in Valletta, and Fragments From The Studio, Mark Mangion's collective exhibition of installations and multimedia work, held at the Biagio Steps Halls also in Valletta last year.
In my opinion, Mr Cauchi's work expresses new mythic imagery that speaks to our time. They are visual metaphors that convey echoes of perennial truths to our contemporary consciousness.
They question the archetypal life of any anonymous individual. His "faces" present to us an "image" of the various situations of humanity. I believe also that in these works the artist is expressing a struggle for social freedom. It is like a cry for more freedom on the part of others, the viewers. It is, as Sartre commented "a moral act which calls out for more morality".
Mr Cauchi believes that the existentialist produces good art because it always explores political, moral issues.
"The artist is first and foremost a political being. I believe that art needs to be instructive, it has to educate, and by this I am not referring to academic education... we need to work away from thematic, specific, intellectual and exclusive and towards a more universal, direct and inclusive form of expression," he says.
The artist feels that his paintings are the result of continuous questioning of his position in the world, questioning being, questioning the act of painting and doubting language. They are an expression of "a transition between an apathetic state and an active one, non-being and being".
During the opening of the exhibition, Francesca Mangion, a young Maltese poet, launched her book Rakkonti Minn Art Ix-, with illustrations by the artist. The book reflects the "constant apathic state of existence in Malta". One can see that in a way there is a similarity between the works in the exhibition and the book.
Dustin Cauchi is a young Maltese artist and a newcomer in the Maltese art scene. His works express a particular existentialist philosophy. Currently he is showcasing a series of paintings entitled Ix- U Jien, which means "nothingness and the self". This is his first personal exhibition, which is being held at the Loggia of the Fine Arts Museum. Most of the works are executed in monochromatic colours, mainly based on light and dark blues and greys. In most works we find one central image which is that of a face of an archetypal human emerging from a hollow, or in other words a face taking shape from central cosmic matter. Some paintings also represent a sort of a cosmic void or a kind of "cloudscapes without any reference to human forms. Although Mr Cauchi affirms that he did not work directly on a theme, the development of the work and the final result convey an existentialist statement.
"The paintings narrate a coming into being, a birth, or in some cases a rebirth. The paintings are charged with all the violence of birth, of creation, and never of destruction. In this work I played with familiarisation and defamiliarisation, between image and spectator. So in some cases this nothingness reaffirmed an existential status quo in the spectator, and in other cases the spectator is exposed to this dimension of nothingness, maybe, for the first time through the work," he states.
In Mr Cauchi's work, certainly "nothingness" is being represented in some kind of form taking shape. It is the "nothingness" as a non being that comes to "be" through human consciousness.
Mr Cauchi, is also a final year student in theatre studies and philosophy at the University of Malta. He started to show his work in collective art exhibitions some time ago; worth mentioning Scaremongering, a collective exhibition organised by a group of young talented artists and which was held in an old house of character in Valletta, and Fragments From The Studio, Mark Mangion's collective exhibition of installations and multimedia work, held at the Biagio Steps Halls also in Valletta last year.
In my opinion, Mr Cauchi's work expresses new mythic imagery that speaks to our time. They are visual metaphors that convey echoes of perennial truths to our contemporary consciousness.
They question the archetypal life of any anonymous individual. His "faces" present to us an "image" of the various situations of humanity. I believe also that in these works the artist is expressing a struggle for social freedom. It is like a cry for more freedom on the part of others, the viewers. It is, as Sartre commented "a moral act which calls out for more morality".
Mr Cauchi believes that the existentialist produces good art because it always explores political, moral issues.
"The artist is first and foremost a political being. I believe that art needs to be instructive, it has to educate, and by this I am not referring to academic education... we need to work away from thematic, specific, intellectual and exclusive and towards a more universal, direct and inclusive form of expression," he says.
The artist feels that his paintings are the result of continuous questioning of his position in the world, questioning being, questioning the act of painting and doubting language. They are an expression of "a transition between an apathetic state and an active one, non-being and being".
During the opening of the exhibition, Francesca Mangion, a young Maltese poet, launched her book Rakkonti Minn Art Ix-, with illustrations by the artist. The book reflects the "constant apathic state of existence in Malta". One can see that in a way there is a similarity between the works in the exhibition and the book.