An exhibition with the enticing title ‘Daydreams’ at the National Museum of Fine Arts, excited my expectations, so I pencilled it in my diary.
I had no knowledge of the artist, Barbara Burzke and her work was entirely new to me.
It is always interesting to get to know the work of a new artist, especially a non-Maltese one, for this gives the opportunity to see how a different cultural background affects the artistic output.
The introduction to the exhibition comes with a colourful 1996 Self-portrait in oils and collage. The collage element is subtly concealed and subdued, although this is less so in other exhibits.
The self-portrait has dashes of paint that enliven it, framing and enveloping the sitter, but the composition and execution were not exciting. The facial expression is stern and overworked. The painting gives the impression that it is the work of someone who is more enthused to paint plants and vegetation than the human form.
Girls in red shows two half figures with pale ivory skin, with a third face showing through in between. I was left unsure if this was a pentimento or an intentional mystery addition. Horizontal strips of lighter toned colour show an attempt at being innovative with a peopled composition, but somehow, again, the attractive girls are unfortunately not sufficiently well-modelled, and the quality of execution varies.
In these two portraits, and in other peopled scenes, red is the obvious predominant colour.
The peopled scenes are complemented by cityscapes of Berlin and landscapes of Malta. In the Berlin scenes, a street lamp also features with Street Lamp of Berlin being one of the more interesting exhibits having an infused lighter central vertical area illuminating the scene.
The Malta scenes include a 1998 acrylic on canvas and collage Marsaxlokk and Feast at Ta’ Qali of over a decade later. The different cultural background comes out in the different way the artist looks at Malta. The landscapes look different to the ones we are used to. One characteristic feature in some of these is the use of subdued colours, such as in Birgu.
Going back to the peopled scenes, the figures leave much to be desired. Imagination is at work, but technique and composition are not entirely satisfactory and the paintings do not really come together as a coherent whole.
The painting that stands out is the title piece of the exhibition, Daydreaming. It shows a frontally posed young female sitting on an armchair. She is engulfed in a refulgent gold that gives the canvas an iconic touch which overshadows the other exhibits by far.
The modelling of the girl’s head is delicate and shows good execution, and the composition is attractive for the decorative traits employed, the flat quality of the forms, and the seemingly floating armchair lending to the scene a mystical element. The lack of use of perspective in the background gives the painting a more eloquently powerful presence.
This use of gold and harsh perspective are applied to Golden Heaven where we are madeto look up at the façade of a building, particularly its fluted columns and pilasters. But the effectis unfortunately dissimilar toDaydreaming.
Burzke has shown that her imagination, technique and execution can come together to create lovely paintings, but the result is notnecessarily always a happy one.‘Daydreams’ is open at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, until June 29.