Paintings capture dancers in action

An exhibition by Carmel Micallef is being held at the VGB Art Gallery in Republic Street Valletta. It is titled Ballet Dancers in Action and will run till the end of May. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday up to 1 p.m.

The exhibition is the 10th personal one for the artist, but it has been nine years since his last one. The whole process of the way the artist paints his pictures is considered as conceptual by him although the actual paintings may not seem in this style.

The artist had the idea some years ago to work an antithesis of the work done by his favourite and studied art group of the seventies the 'Conceptualists'. The thought process of this group of artist was to practically remove from their work all that had to do with the craft of painting. So for example one of the most formidable conceptualist Joseph Kosuth used to exhibit prints of dictionary meanings. To do the opposite of this Micallef came up with the idea that he'll try to remove the thought process when doing his paintings. So what happens is that the artist takes the picture which is his source of reference, puts it into a computer and after manipulating it with a programme, paints the resulting effect.

Carmel Micallef was born in Birkirkara in 1948, he was educated at St Aloysius College. In 1976 he won first and third prizes in the Malta Amateur Art Competition and Exhibition. He followed a 5-year course at the Malta School of Art. Micallef participated in many collective exhibitions in Malta , England, Germany, Greece, U.S.A., Italy and Australia,and has held nine personal exhibitions.

He won first prize in the Readers Exhibited Works Competition organized by The Artist magazine of U.K.. Mr Micallef is a council member of the Malta Society Of Arts Manufactures & Commerce