“Beauty should save the world.” I was reminded of this famous quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, by a dear friend only a few days after the opening of Sean Gabriel Ellul’s exhibition, ‘Paradise Lost’.
Would life be worth living without beauty, especially with such tragedies happening constantly around us?
Dostoevsky brilliantly crystallises the concept of beauty. Beauty is the balm of life, and coupled with love, they are the zest that makes life worth living.
Ellul’s bust-length figures present us with a very individual and idiosyncratic notion of beauty that it is essential to come to terms with if you are to appreciate his ongoing exhibition. It may not be everyone’s idea of what constitutes beauty, but it has a logic and that is worthy of respect.
Ellul shows two distinct types of exhibits: small sketch-like drawings and larger paintings executed in acrylic on paper. Both are equally colourful and expressive.
Having said that, it must be noted that the smaller works, some of which served as sketches for the larger paintings, have a freshness that, in a way, make them more appealing than the finished works.
This of course does not mean the larger finished paintings lack interest. A piece that stands out, among many, is Tokyo Metro, which also features as a sketch.
Ellul’s beautifully-executed figures have blurred faces and are depicted reclining, some smiling, and sometimes outlined. The backgrounds may be enlivened by palm trees and fronds and other plant life.
Some figures either have a faraway look and stare out of the picture frame, while others are on the phone, possibly providing explanations to a lost lover as suggested by an inscription at the top of Untitled Paradise VII and the title Wish you were here.
Some figures sport blackened eyes. These, together with the sketchily drawn backgrounds invigorated with several lines sometimes bleeding and sometimes even covering the figure (horizontal and vertical), give the images a somewhat eerie beauty.
Hollywood Poolside II and Under the Red Beach Umbrella are particular cases in point, the latter with a profusion of red ‘bleeding’ paint.
No matter how discomfited this may sound, Ellul’s paintings are nonetheless likeable images. They have an idiosyncratic beauty.
Some may conclude that Ellul has a distorted idea of beauty, but what they should also realise is that it is beauty nonetheless. Ellul’s paintings provide a rather unique kind of beauty to the Maltese contemporary art scene. He has a formula that is distinctly his, and I hope the will develop it further.
What is disappointing is the choice of having the 24 paintings on exhibit only in one of the courtyard’s corridors. The Auberge d’Italie provides a marvellous space for exhibitions, and the venue was not utilised to its potential.
I therefore left the exhibition hungry for I thought the first corridor was merely the introduction to the exhibition. As a result, I felt this exhibition was more a taster (or more of a tease); a preview of another exhibition to come. This may well be the case. At least I hope so.
The courteous Ellul has nonetheless worked to the best of his abilities with regard to the paintings on show, even though a smaller, more intimate gallery space would have suited this exhibition better.
‘Paradise Lost’ is open at Auberge d’Italie, Valletta, until Friday.