Conrad Thake will take a look at Victor Pasmore from the point of view of architecture in a lecture being delivered tomorrow in Valletta.
Thake will explore Pasmore’s earlier experimentation with abstraction and representations of the dynamics of three-dimensional space, his formative influences leading to his direct involvement as an artistic consultant in the design of the town plan of Peterlee.
Specific reference will be made to the controversial Apollo Pavilion as an iconic architectural sculpture that over time became a point of reference within the local community.
Furthermore, the Malta years are considered in relation to the artist’s own residence of Dar Ġamri sited in the limits of Gudja, years which relate to a symbiotic syntax that combines local vernacular architecture with Pasmore’s modernist interventions.
Pasmore’s work is essentially seen as a spatial, experiential one where the formal boundaries between mural paintings, installations, sculpture and architecture dissolve and merge into one. As he himself recounted to the BBC in 1960, “Purely formal painting does make it possible for an integration of the painter and the architect. In fact, the painter is a form of architect.”
■ The Architect in Pasmore is being held tomorrow at 6.30pm at the Victor Pasmore Gallery within the Annexe at the Central Bank of Malta in Valletta (entrance through Ġlormu Cassar Street). The lecture is free.