Anima, the latest exhibition by Mila Christova and Janet Fenech, offers a varied collection of about 50 paintings and sculptures that include silver amulets cast in the lost-wax process or in rubber mould, ceramics, photography, digital print, graphics, metal sculpture, painting and ebru. The latter is a Turkish printing technique carried out with water and seaweed (water marbling).

The exhibition exposes these young students from St Edward’s College to public scrutiny and criticism for the first time. No longer sheltered by the college walls, they shoulder their responsibilities with courage as they cross the threshold of adulthood. The exhibition brings out in contrast their different characters.

Christova is an introvert with deep insight into life. Her art is intellectual, abstract and minimal, with a surreal touch, based on pure ideas.

Her best works are Semblance, an abstract print in digital creativity; Luna, a simple sculpture in welded metal; and Horror Vacqui, that caused her nightmares to fill in a large space in paint. The theme to this last one involves her personally and intimately.

Christova’s Insommia, or Catcher of Dreams, presents a mixed media sculpture mainly in wood that is a fantastic interpretation of an old legend.

On the other hand, Fenech is a veritable extrovert. Very passionate, her work is physical and sensual. Sensitive and emotional, she prefers a figurative expression, complex and decorative in substance, bordering on the surreal. She emphasises form in space, is fond of languages and loves filming techniques and editing. Her best works are Embarkation, Déjà Vu and Mutability, in a series of works that are dedicated to the journey in life. Her Internal Reflections, a work in mixed-media, fuses painting, collage and photography into a triptych. These recent works are very expressive and impressive.

Both artists’ work is a personal, expressionist language flowing with emotion and sentiment about the journey of life. While Christova focuses on the end, with inevitable death, Fenech lingers on its beginning: birth and childhood.

No longer sheltered by the college walls, they shoulder their responsibilities with courage

Both Christova’s and Fenech’s expression is quite mature for their age, soul-searching with hardly any self-pity shown or allowed.

It must have been quite difficult to face what they saw in the mirror, but above all, it was a therapeutic exercise with a gradual, healing process that helped growth and the assertion of the self.

The artists supported each other in technical and psychological problems, and so grew together in friendship and ability. This team spirit is reflected in their work which, though contrasting, is very complementary.

Anima shows at the Cavalieri Hotel, St Julian’s, until September 12.

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