A Velvety Touch is an exhibition of painting and sculpture by George Scicluna of Gozo to be inaugurated by James Cassar at Cavalieri Hotel on Thursday at 8pm.

It is a certain sustained velvety softness and tenderness in curvaceous melted forms, with a constant rhythm of globular modules, which form spherical shapes in infinite movement, that immediately strike you in Scicluna’s latest exhibition.

The serenity, tranquillity and harmonious sense these works exude expose the sublime and classical in an expressive artist, who struggles to keep still in his tormented search for solutions to problems that are beyond human knowledge.

His persistent exploration and search for answers to vital questions, his leap into the unknown, his dissatisfaction at failure to comprehend fully is reflected in his work. As in art, like life, we are always alone and there are no answers.

This struggle in his search surfaces in some of these works too, when resolution gives way to anguish and torment as the melted forms intertwine, interlink or become entangled and enmeshed.

In Entangled and Movement, Scicluna leaves no doubt that his sculpture evolves from his painting. He interprets master-pieces in painting by his favourite chords and arcs forming vortices and vibrant circular movement.

He does the same in his sculpture at times achieving similar composition as Morose and Penseroso, where the vortices suggest sadness and meditation.

In Embrace, the artist echoes his well-known painted work: the same goes for In Memory after Francis Bacon, whose figure is entwined with that of his partner George Dyer. Union is reminiscent of Adam and Eve, a painting that projects the union of man and woman as “two in one and one in two”.

Scicluna believes that the movement of man resembles that of a wave: it is basically circular, oscillatory. He works in vortices. He is the eye of the storm. Where he stands is resolution. The energy springs from his hand in centrifugal force. Where the viewer stands is chaos, but Scicluna invites him to an enclave of silence and peace.

“Art is the lie that tells the truth,” Pablo Picasso maintained. For Scicluna, the creative act is the only reality.

The exhibition will be open to the public from Friday to June 7. The event is sponsored by Cavalieri Hotel, Valletta Fund Management, Marsovin and the Art Discussion Group.