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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 5 ART Nigel Baldacchino and Tom Van Malderen in duo show ARTISTS Nigel Baldacchino and Tom Van Malderen launch Blink, a duo show, on Friday 18 June at Valletta Contemporary. Nigel Baldacchino's photo- graphic work will highlight the way windows articulate light and vision throughout the day in people's urban reality, while through his sculptural work, Tom Van Malderen repurpos- es objects from day-to-day life, usually taken for granted. "Blinking is an automatic ges- ture that half-knowingly punc- tuates our perception of visual reality in time," the artists said of their forthcoming show. "It ruptures the continuum of sight, lending it an inescapable and unceasing rhythm. It is also a mundane act of maintenance: we need to shut our eyes, so as to be able to keep them open. The work presented here is concerned with rhythms of life, and ways of perceiving. Like a blink, the work ruptures auto- mated and familiar cycles, pro- pelling them forward then back again." With Baldacchino's work on windows, his photographs will show how they modulate the interior onlooker's perception, as days and seasons go by, of what is exterior and, vice-ver- sa, by reflecting, refracting (when half open, at an angle) and transmitting light in dif- ferent degrees. His work freezes specific in- stances in these cycles that, like blinking, highlight their perpetual motion. "A blink is also a moment of exception, to one's gaze, much like a window is a moment of exception to the opaque presence of a wall," Baldacchino says. Van Malderen will be repur- posing objects from day-to-day life, usually taken for granted – "not unlike blinking" – put- ting into question what the el- ements that make up people's daily routines can mean and represent. He decomposes people's ex- perience of objects, proposing a new time-frame to the en- counter with furniture, cre- ating a rupture in their daily rhythm, and asks his audience to imagine what can happen if they are not preoccupied with the usual function, habit and necessity that furniture trig- gers. Tom Van Malderen's work ranges from buildings to furni- ture, installations and exhibi- tion design. He likes to probe the intersections between art, design and architecture in his practice; always on the lookout for material gestures in every- day constellations, split per- sonalities in objects and ambi- guities in the construction of social space. Past exhibitions include 'Good Conditions' (DMW Gal- lery, Antwerp, Belgium, 2019), 'Except for Access Only' (Mal- ta Contemporary Art, Valletta, Malta 2018) and 'Good Walls Make Good Neighbours' (Val- letta International Visual Arts Festival, Malta 2015). Tom de- signed several sets and exhibi- tions like 'Superlikes' for Zfin- Malta, 'Homo Melitensis' the Malta Pavilion at the 57th Ven- ice Art Biennial and 'Malta, Land of Sea' for BOZAR, Cen- tre of Fine Arts in Brussels. Nigel Baldacchino (b. 1989) is an artist and design archi- tect based in Malta. His artis- tic practice extends to various media, including photography, music production, video, text, and design of physical objects / spaces. His use of photography as a medium tends mostly towards a painterly artistic dynamic, in that his work is often less about showcasing content than it is about evoking mood through visual expression and convey- ing personal comments on the perception of a knowingly shared reality. His impetus to- wards taking photographs runs loose in theme, and is often fueled instead sporadically by his own recurring musings and observations about the way one relates to the world around them through their presence in space and their perception of it. Past collective photographic exhibitions include 'Sense of Place' (BOZAR Centre of Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium, 2012), 'In Transit' (NRW Forum in Dusseldorf / Stadskantoor and Leewarden, 2017) and 'Transi- tions' (Painture Fraiche, Brus- sels Belgium, 2020). Prints of his photographs and work in video were acquired by the The Malta National-Com- munity Art Museum in 2017 as part of their collection. His photography was also pub- lished on GUP Magazine's first edition of 'FRESH EYES' (2020). In 2019 Nigel published 'Soon Out of Context' (Unsolicited Press) featuring instances of his own poetry presented in di- alogue with found images lifted from old publications, now in the public domain. Nigel Baldacchino Tom Van Maldeeren