Travel is something that many of us cannot do without. Once the travel bug is instilled, there is no going back. I am an avid traveller and the process of discovery never stops intriguing me.
Voyager is the title of an ongoing exhibition that brings with it ideas of sea, and therefore not just the idea of calm, but even of peril.
The title is that of Pawl Carbonaro’s solo exhibition. It is a collection of nine abstract paintings produced in the past five years and it is the very first in a new art gallery, Studio 104.
In fact, it was this exhibition that inaugurated the intimate art space – albeit small, the venue is well equipped and has potential.
This oil on canvas collection by Carbonaro is very evocative of his character and of his current artistic production.
He is instinctive and makes an admirable use of expressive colour, form, tonalities and compositions.
The title of the exhibition reminds us of Carbonaro’s love for travel. The itinerant artist is known to paint landscapes of places he has visited, the experience of which surely left an indelible impact on the man and on the artist.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw three large Carbonaro paintings in a collective exhibition, called Swim, which was held at the Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa and was in a different style.
This collection is again related to the sea, and it is all about incessant movement and dark mysterious backgrounds out of which haphazard strokes of colour emerge to create mystifying compositions.
The tour de force of the exhibition is, in my opinion, Vertical Marine. It is a three-tiered composition divided horizontally, where the misty atmosphere created by means of the translucent application of paint and the inclusion of some gold among the cold blue hues is arrestingly beautiful.
Of bolder composition is Cityscape, where black brushstrokes and drawn black lines contrast beautifully with the light pink shade, and where little hints of yellow make all the difference to the composition.
It has a lot of form, within which a lot of depth is effortlessly created. I am very keen on this direction Carbonaro’s abstracts are taking.
The itinerant artist is known to paint landscapes of places he has visited, the experience of which surely left an indelible impact on the man and on the artist
Porto Rosso has a warm colour scheme that is well balanced and calm in nature, and where layers of paint application allow for the colours to blend on the surface of the canvas. The more expressive and forceful Allegro ma non troppo is the brightest painting in this collection, and also distinctively Carbonaro.
Similar in tone to Vertical Marine is Opus 0513 and Opus 0313, while the other paintings are warmer in their palette. With such titles, one also realises that Carbonaro is also very fond of music.
Although contrasting in character in terms of hue, the two chosen colour schemes are all omnipresent in Carbonaro’s artistic output, and they all fit into the voyager theme, and the emotions that come with this process of travel and discovery.