Photographer Alex Attard. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Hidden behind the plaster on a wall right opposite the corridor to the new parliament chamber is an effigy of the master architect Renzo Piano.

Photographer Alex Attard managed to capture the image, which bears a striking likeliness to Mr Piano, on his camera before it was covered in plaster.

The photograph will now be on display at an exhibition Mr Attard is officially opening today at Valletta’s St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity.

The photograph shows a prefabricated concrete slab that forms part of the parliament wall. It had some holes drilled in for lifting purposes that were later filled up haphazardly with cement by workers after it was lowered in place.

The image is one in a series caught on camera in natural lighting over more than two years between 2012 and 2014 while workers were insulating and finishing the new parliament building, located at the capital’s entrance.

During construction a building site is like a theatre – workers follow the architect’s defined script. However, the workers’ interaction with the tools and materials is often overlooked, Mr Attard noted. So the photographer captured shots of random splashes and cement drippings, strokes of waterproofing membrane, insulation panels, blobs of rubber sealant and gypsum plaster before they were forever hidden under the completed facade.

I wanted to find the beautiful in the ordinary

Some of these unplanned shapes and patterns bear resemblance to people – like Renzo Piano and Pope John XXIII.

One splash of tar looks like a cat, while in another shot, the reflection of brushstrokes look like stage curtains.

Apart from an artistic expression, The Overlooked Performance documents the “skin beneath the face of a historic project”.

Renzo Piano and his ‘effigy’ which is hidden behind plaster.

“I wanted to capture the unconscious art that the workers created and is now hidden behind a clean and neat facade,” the photographer, from Valletta, said.

“I wanted to find the beautiful in the ordinary. Unlike most art pieces, where artists are constrained by the final aesthetics of a product, in this case the workers’ brush strokes are free as they knew they would be covered up,” he explained.

Supported by the Malta Arts Fund, The Overlooked Performance will open for the public tomorrow and close on April 5.

www.overlookedperformance.com