Gozitan sculptor wins silver medal at Nantes exhibition

During the inauguration of Unity in Diversity, a collective exhibition organised by the Art Discussion Group at Palazzo de La Salle, Valletta, last year, Mario Agius, one of the participating artists, met Jean-François Grancher, a Frenchman living in St Venera, who was so impressed with Agius’s works that he encouraged him to exhibit in France. Following my advice, Agius did so.

Shortly afterwards, in September, I helped Agius organise a personal exhibition of sculpture in wood and stone entitled Natura at the Castellania Palace in Valletta, which was a resounding success.

During Notte Bianca alone, about 2,000 visitors saw the exhibition.

In November, Agius participated in a collective exhibition and competition and won first prize in the sculpture section at the Art Academy, Mosta, for The Scream, which I had described as a powerful creation, one whose roots lie in modern expressionist idiom: in the art of Munch, Ensor and Bacon. The sculptor exploits the gnarled and rough wood grain and the distortion that is auxiliary to its expressive power.

That same month, Agius won a silver medal in a collective exhibition in Nantes, France, the tenth Salon International GANFA, after he won second place for Ballerina, a primitive figure in a pirouette sculpted in wood. Recently, Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono congratulated him officially during a ceremony in his honour held at the ministry in Victoria.

Agius’s romantic vision is nourished by his upbringing. His parents loved and cared for the land and soil in a rural area unspoilt by modern ‘progress’ and sophistication, where nature protected the temples of Ġgantija from the ravages of time but with telltale signs of erosion and denudation. Hence his stone sculptures in eroded upper globigerina.

Agius, 55, has always nourished a love for sculpture and design. His talent and enthusiasm for sculpture helped him in no small way during his studies under the late Mgr Michelangelo Apap (1915-2006) in drawing and painting, and in carving wood under the able direction of Anton Agius (1933-2008), one of Malta’s leading carvers in wood after the exceptional Samuel Bugeja (1920-2004).

Agius has numerous works in churches, particularly decorative sculpture in wood and ecclesiastical furniture.

In 1989 he attended a course in sculptural studies at the White Knight Gallery in Cheltenham, UK, organised by Ian Norbury, a sculptor of international repute.

Agius teaches technology and design in wood at Ninu Cremona Lyceum complex in Victoria. He has participated in various collective exhibitions including those organised by the British Woodcarvers Association.

A number of his works have been acquired by art lovers and are found in private collections both locally and abroad.