Change is a continual occurrence. Sometimes it is drastic. Atother times subtle and hardlyperceptible.

Most exhibits have a hauntingly beautiful quality to them- Charlene Vella

In the Maltese art scene, there is always much complaining about the present tragic situation that fails to stimulate. Aspiring artists have not much to excite them.

Thanks to the British Council in Malta, we can come to terms with 70 artworks by some 39 British artists, modern and contemporary. Baby steps… All the works form part of the British Council’s collection, and have been chosen by curator Paula Rego, an artist who has been on many metaphorical thresholds.

The British Council is celebrating its 75th anniversary in Malta by giving us the gift of this exhibition.

The exhibition contains lithographs, oil paintings, watercolours, etchings, drawings and screenprints among others. It comes as a breath of fresh air for many of us.

Madame Yevonde’s, or Yevonde Middleton (1893-1975), memorable perma-dye transfer prints leave an immediate imprint on the visitor, not only because the exhibition advert relates to one of these images.

Madame Yevonde came as a revelation to me. She was one who in the early 20th century, developed the use of colour in portrait photo-graphy. Very interesting is the realisation that her Machine Worker in Summer, an image of a nude female at a sewing machine, dates back to 1937. Her three tattoo studies, also in this exhibition, date to 1938.

Along the same lines as Machine Worker in Summer is Gerald Leslie Brockhurst’s 1932 Adolescence, a portrait of his lover as a young nude female. We see her from the back as she sits in front of a dresser mirror.

The etching is laden with items that allowed Brockhurst to display his dexterity with the needle on the metal plate. The image is provocatively erotic and makes you feel like an intruder.

It presents us with two sensual images that are subtly different, one conceived by a woman’s gaze, and the other by a male who was in a relationship with her. The erotic tension in the latter is manifestly present. And because of this, it is so different to Madame Yevonde’s Machine Worker.

Particularly daunting yet striking is Frank Auerbach’s (b. 1931) Head of Ken Garland of 1977/8. This expressive chalk and charcoal drawing is almost completely monochrome, bar a very effective use of cobalt blue exclusively reserved for the sitter’s right eye.

Equally memorable is Walter Richard Sickert’s etching of Ennui of 1915, an image that resonates ina painting found at Tate Britain.It brilliantly achieves the notionof uneventfulness that can occurin marriage.

If I were allowed to take any of the exhibits home, my choice would fall on Gwen John’s Head of a Woman drawing of c. 1910. This fresh pencil and wash on paper portrays a young woman, who has a concerned distant look and disheveled hair. John met the sitter when in Paris, and the two remained friends until John’s death.

One cannot but mention two artists who have been represented in major London galleries in retrospective exhibitions in the last few months – David Hockney (b. 1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011). And there is so much more to discover.

Most exhibits have a hauntingly beautiful quality to them. And for this and for reasons of content, I very much enjoyed the last room of the exhibition, finding myself returning to it, again and again.

The choice of exhibits was the brainchild of Rego, and when one relates this choice to her own personal works, which are often complex and psychologically evocative playing on emotions, this appears to be very appropriate.

Indeed, the choice of exhibits is very much a play on the psychology of the portrayed, people in situations we often find ourselves in, be they related to childhood, sexuality or monotony. This in turn leaves an indelible impact on the viewer.

Taken as a whole, this is an exhibition that leaves us with a bit of a bitter taste, but there is beauty in melancholy, and it is amply present. We just need to be able to find the beauty in it.

The exhibition has a beautifuldisplay, with the hanging ofimages and grouping being well thought-out. It is proof of how well the Upper Galleries of St James Cavalier lend themselves to suchtasteful exhibitions.

This exhibition is moreover different because unlike most other art shows, its aim was not to make a profit. Therefore, in order to show organisers of such exhibitions how appreciative we are of their efforts, let us make it a point to visit this exhibition, more than once if possible. You are sure to find a thing or two that will inspire you.