There is a paradox in Josette Caruana and her work. She is a rather reticent personality, but she is a wonderful and supremely eloquent artist. Can a hesitancy in one form of language use be related to a creative proficiency in another?
In his book L'Image Interdite, Besancon intriguingly suggests that abstract art is the most sophisticated (and final) form of iconoclasm - a denial of representation. Even if Besancon were right, and this is debatable, there are two problems with this thesis.
One, we live in a world that is dominated by the image rather than the word; and two, the abstract image in art does not attempt to destroy representation, but rather to move representation to new levels where the signifier is disembedded from the signified.
We must remember that Iconoclasm is basically Platonism - a devaluation of the real tangible image in favour of the pure intellectual, almost musical, understanding. But such patriarchal rigidity must surely be perplexed by both the eloquence of the abstract image that Josette Caruana's works embody as epiphanies, and the fact that her images are music in colour.
Indeed one could argue that they are synaesthetic: that is, her paintings, which are pure colour, can also be approached in terms of music. Above all Josette Caruana understands colour - iridescent, exuberant, controlled, intense yet relaxed, mature yet childlike. A highly committed artist, extremely thoughtful in her work, her paintings and creations are also profoundly spiritual.
Her works show that the soul is not necessarily a captive of the suffering self, a heritage of Christinaity, but can approach the colourful exuberance of Hellenism where colour (chroma) is also feeling (synaestomai).
We are privileged to enter her world of joyful, musical, colour. And I like to think that they are the colours of her soul: zen-like contemplations and insights, both profound and deceptively simple...
To quote a great master: "While you, philosophically, seek the world in the self, I merely apply my effort to a maximum of appearances, in close correlation to unknown realities.
When one is on the plane of concordant appearances, one cannot be too far from reality, or at least from what we are capable of knowing about it. I have done nothing but look at what the universe has shown to me, so as to bear witness to it with my brush" (Claude Monet to Clemenceau, 1928).
An exhibition of works by Josette Caruana is currently being held at Il Gattopardo art gallery and bistro, 20, Villegaignon Street, Mdina (tel. 2145-1213/2145-4572). It is open from Monday to Saturday between 11.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays it is also open between 4.30 and 11 p.m.