To a bibliophile, the word volume has an obvious connotation to the written or printed word, to the multiplicity of books in any given series or library. Yet to an artist, a sculptor moreover, the same word implies three dimensions, mass, bodies in space, or even solid plasmatic forms.
The plastic arts have been a major concern of countless artists throughout the ages, most especially those painters who, unsatisfied by flat planes and surfaces eventually sought to express themselves through free standing, in the round, tangible or interactive pieces which we are accustomed to calling sculpture. Victor Agius is one such artist who is doubly preoccupied by both the realms of painting and sculpture.
Insofar, he has chosen the medium of ceramics to produce and depict what has been to date an oeuvre of quasi exclusively sacred or religious themes and subjects. The figure has constantly been his point of departure, yet one which he seems to be steadily abstracting as his maniera grows and develops.
His forms often rise in a vortex – coiled, contorted, spiralling heavenwards, peaking at a precarious summit. These forms are decidedly elongated and intertwined almost extracted or reminiscent of the Mannerist era – a period/movement associated with a certain level of intellectual sophistication and artificiality when compared to the naturalism pertinent to the Renaissance.
Artificiality (here used to mean not natural and man-made) is a particularly apt word when describing Agius’s figurative sculptures which have a highly glazed and polished finish. This finish, together with a multitude of colours and hues which he has decided to impart upon his works, bear no realistic or naturalistic properties. The surfaces of his sculptures are more akin and bear closer semblance to his latest non-figurative works from which he often adopts and borrows elements which are utilised interchangeably.
In the past, his works rarely featured a lone or solitary figure; he has been more prone to the creation of group sculptures in which amassed figures generally morph into a dense and sturdy whole.
Agius is however branching out and looking beyond the restrictions posed by representational art. The figure has been reduced to a fluid, often nebulous form and at times it has also been done away with completely. As he proved with the latest series of paintings in the exhibition Inside Out, Agius is reiterating his self reinvention and re-examination. He is indulging in the developmental process of his personal artistic evolution, through constant experimentation, self-challenge and vision.
The exhibition is being held at the Ministry of Gozo. The exhibition hall is open from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
www.victoragius.com