Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1181922
THIS WEEK ART maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 NOVEMBER 2019 4 Renowned for his striking 'bone sculptures', artist John Paul Azzopardi now branches into spiritually-charged black-and- white paintings, showcased in his current exhibition 'Silver River' on display at Lily Agius Gallery. He speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about the esoteric and transcendent underpinnings that animate these new works Teodor Reljic Floating in and out of the Could you tell us a little bit about your evolution as an artist over the years? When did you first become aware of your inclinations towards the visual arts, and at which point did you decide to pursue them in a more consistent way? I think I've always been inter- ested in the arts, ever since I was a very young child. In my early years, when my family was still living in London, very often my father used to take me to muse- ums. We visited the British mu- seum in particular very often. In my early teens I started playing the drums, and I was a musi- cian up until my mid-twenties. But the first figure I made was during class, when I was study- ing to be an electrician. I was 16 and I didn't know what course or career path to take, so I start- ed reading to be an electrician. Most classes were so boring that I started making figures from electrical wires and com- ponents. From then on I contin- ued to create these figures but with no real artistic intention to create 'art'. It was during my mid-twenties were I figured out that I really found a language in sculpture, rather than music. So I stopped practising music and continued to create sculpture with more intention. At the age of 26 I decided to return to my studies and I sat for a course in Philosophy at the University of Malta. The course really started to address a lot of my existential and social con- cerns. It also provided me with tools on how to research sub- jects, so the sculptural works I created from then onwards al- ways involved a lot of research and reading. Prior to that, my works were always about in- ner turmoil and angst. I real- ised that it's unhealthy to keep practising and producing works that address my inner anxie- ties, because that would make anxiety the main reason for producing work. This, in turn, made me realise that I would in some way feed from my anxi- ety, and although momentarily I could heal myself, in the long run feeding off one's negativity for the purposes of channelling an idea plunges you into an un- healthy loop. From there, I wanted to un- derstand the true origins of my anxieties and existential issues. When I realised that I could lo- cate these issues from external forces, I realised that I could analyse and dissect these issues in sculptural form; my 'Decay' and 'Samskara' series deals with such topics, for example. Look- ing for the source itself turns out to be a healthy process. When I graduated from uni- versity, at the age of 29, in mythological terms, it was My Saturn returns cycle – the year where one has gone through the first stage of their life and then after a lot of experimenting with character you realise who you really are for the next 29 years; I realised that art is a language I could communicate with. It was at that point that I realised I wanted to turn this into a pro- fessional pursuit. The 'bone sculptures' did become a distinctive trademark for your work. Why do you think the Maltese (and international, given your participation at the Venice Biennale) art-consuming public responded to them to strongly, and how do you feel about that? I don't really know why the public decided to respond strongly to this cycle of work. Maybe because they are in- tricate and made from bone. I guess people are amazed to see such structures made from bone. But those sculptures are more than what they physically present themselves to be. They are structures which address the notion of silence and the beauty of the sublime. An object that can allow you to enjoy the presence of an object where you don't need to exercise and en- gage with your critical faculties. It's meant to do the opposite, to be present and enjoy the phe- nomena of presence. That's why in the two solo exhibitions I pre- sented only one sculpture per exhibition. To be present with presence itself. But in collective exhibitions they can tend to lose their real intention. It all de- pends on how the exhibition is curated. But in most cases, these works haven't worked so well in the consuming art spaces. What were some of the most significant developments and/or changes in your artistic practice? And how does this most recent shift – from your 'bone sculptures' to painting – define where both your process and your state of mind are at this present moment? In my early twenties I was in- terested in exploring my states of inner turmoil. When I en- tered university I decided to locate what causes these anxie- ties. During the later stage of my degree another shift happened when I met the tutor Michael Zammit, who lectures mainly in Eastern philosophy. In read- ing books like The Bhagavad Gita and reading into Advaita Vedanta I found something that really helped me shape other parts of my thirsty self. I then started attending the Practical School of Philosophy, where one learns how to meditate with a foundation in Advaita Vedan- ta, Platonic and Ficino philoso- phy. From then, I developed the quest to create bone works that are in some way a practice of Vedic thought. Apart from meditation, I've always been interested in the states where one experiences different forms of time and space. Altered states of con- sciousness can be experienced in many forms. For the past few years I've been reading into this area to understand the condi- tions for such states and the internal phenomena in one's mind. I'm currently interested into creating art which serves as a tool for experience, experien- tial rather than, say, being criti- "Altered states of consciousness can be experienced in many forms"