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Cheerful, bright yet always gleaming with the excitement of always learning something new: this is how many staff and students know the well-respected in his role as Head of the within the .  

His latest and first solo art exhibition, titled ‘Rhapsody-in-Pain’, is anything but. It is inspired by real-life grief, which he reconfigured in his visual scribblings, as he calls them. Being a communicator, and being “categorically against the stigma of male self-disclosure in moments of grief”, he feels that sharing his feelings, good or bad, was a natural choice. So much so that being so open has resonated with many who related to the pain and encouraged them to reach out.  

The Newspoint Team met with Prof. Mallia to have a chat about his latest “extrusion of intense emotion”, as well as how important it is to not bottle in one’s emotions, but to allow them to instigate change via different media – one of the things the Department of Media & Communications intrinsically teaches its students.  

Q. What inspired you to create the digital paintings in this particular style?  

A. I must admit they are a bit formulaic, but this particular variation of the formula is one I have created myself… so in that sense, I suppose it’s an original.

I wanted to externalise the many manifestations of grief that were assailing me, and found that using Adobe Photoshop to create shapes that in abstract ways mirrored those feelings, using very raw, basic colours so they would pop off the page, did just that. 

But I wanted to create a contrast … for the sake of visual tension… between abstract and classic concepts, which is why I added the pen-and-ink figures (drawn on a Wacom Cintiq tablet or an iPad Pro) … obviously posed and melodramatically signalling the behavioural reaction to the emotion. 

These were integrated and the result, rather than one of contrasts, was quiet surprisingly homogeneous. I was depicting naked emotions… and that is why the figures themselves are nude. Also, the most important contradiction of all was depicting the darkest hour of my life in the brightest colours I could muster. 

Q. How long did it take you, on average, to complete each digital painting? 

A. Not a question I can really answer, because there is an enormous variety in the time spent on each painting. The backdrop, which is an abstraction for the emotion being rendered, often needs redoing from scratch, even when finished, if I’m unhappy with anything in it. And the technique of cross-hatching, which is what I have used for the figures of all 37 of the paintings in the series, is massively painstaking. I’m a bit of a perfectionist… and that trait is not time-economical.

Q. Is this your first solo exhibition? How is having a solo exhibition different than a collective one, and which one do you prefer?

A. It is. And though I have participated in a lot of collectives in a dozen or so countries, and have also curated other artists’ exhibitions, having my own solo is satisfying in that I can do entirely my own thing in it. That it is totally me in every aspect.

Q. What kind of response do you hope to elicit out of the visitors to the exhibition, other than the obvious cathartic effect?  

A. I want visitors to the exhibition to emote with the paintings… to feel what touches them… to share with me the highs and lows of artistic creation. And, of course, I would like them to appreciate the aesthetics. I have never aspired to high art. The prints in this exhibition are visual poems; they are very poster-like in execution. That is, in fact, the whole point, because through the figures and the abstract backgrounds, I think they communicate well.

Q. One of your themes, beyond this exhibition, is drawing sketches of famous people who have passed on. Do you do this as an outburst of gratitude or as a way of reminding your followers of their legacy? 

A. I have actually never thought of the legacy thing! Not once. I do those drawings too as a cathartic exercise, as a way of extruding my sadness at their demise. I only ever do pen portraits of those who have, in some way or another, affected me with what they were in life. They are humble tributes done in my own way so other people touched by them can see them through my eyes.

Q. Other than the ability to think critically, how important is it for people involved in the arts & culture industry to also have an innovative disposition? 

A. Innovation is at the heart of creative expression. You cannot really have one without the other. I’m not demolishing walls or crying foul (all very important roles for art in society). I am, in a sense, crying quietly in a corner of a very large hall, but “painting” that in ways that are unique to me, makes this a creative statement that stands alone and contributes.

Q. Your digital paintings have been featured on Buzzfeed, and that’s thanks to your online presence. On the other hand, even if you don’t depict your past in your digital paintings, one can easily find a digital footprint of it. Is online presence beneficial, or detrimental overall? 

A. Our online lives are always a double-bladed knife. Though Google and most social networks now have the possibility of “forgetting” parts of the past (and select posts), there will always be the skeletons that won’t go away. Nor should they, I believe. For the artist, online presence provides a back-catalogue… I suppose, the good, the bad and the ugly. But it’s still the oeuvre in its posted entirety.

Q. What is in the recent future of Prof. Ġorġ Mallia?  

A. It is to have a future. And I look forward to teaching my next group of students, and being taught by them.  

 

will be exhibited at 111 Art Gallery in Ta’ Xbiex from 6 to 20 March, 2020. Entrance is free of charge.