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3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 OCTOBER 2025 ART Reduced to insanity THERE is a strange comfort in madness, a kind of rhythm that pulses beneath dis- tortion. Franco Navarro's Art does not ask to be understood, it demands to be felt. These are not paintings to decode, they are flames to stand near, to recoil from and return to. Each figure, every unset- tling contour and expression, exists in a liminal space between torment and tran- scendence. The bodies are misshapen, often exag- gerated or incomplete, not to provoke dis- gust, but to confess truth. Navarro's sub- jects are us, caught in the act of becoming or unravelling. In their tension, we meet ourselves, the frightened, the exposed, the absurd. But as the viewer moves through these canvases, saturated with reds, blacks, and bruised flesh tones, a kind of peace be- gins to whisper beneath the chaos. There is so much madness here that it's hard to appreciate the beautiful. But the beautiful is always present. Look past the contorted torsos and haunting stares, and you will find a dog rendered with serene softness, or a still life glowing in modest quiet. A notebook, a lemon, plums, mun- dane things made sacred through simplic- ity. A calm eye peers into the abyss, not with fear, but with quiet understanding. This is the other side of Navarro's Art. Its tenderness. There is no hierarchy here between the grotesque and the gentle. They are two limbs of the same body. His work understands that in a world where everything bleeds into everything else, horror and beauty do not stand in con- trast. They lean on each other. The dog is not just a dog; he is a witness. The still life is not mere fruit and object, it is meditation. In a world fraying at the edges, these piec- es remind us that stillness is a form of resistance, and softness a kind of truth. They ground the mad- ness, not by fighting it, but by standing beside it without fear. Navarro's brush does not judge. It ob- serves. His figures wear their wounds on the outside; their madness is made visible, as though inviting us to finally drop our own masks. And yet, there is never ridi- cule. Even the most exaggerated form re- tains its dignity. There is, oddly, a kind of holiness in their pain, something reminis- cent of ancient martyrdoms, reimagined through a surreal lens. This collection is not a descent. It is a cy- cle, a meditation on the tension between rupture and radiance. The fire is warm, but the silence warmer. And through it all, a thread of beauty persists—not in perfec- tion, but in presence. In witnessing. Written by curator Justin Nicholas Mi- callef About the artist Born in 1978 Malta, Franco Navarro started his artistic training at the Mal- ta Society of Arts, Palazzo De la Salle in Valletta (MSA) and continued his studies at the Malta School of Art, Casa Brunet, also in Valletta (SOA). Where he now serves as an Art teacher. He furthered his studies in 2001 at the History of Art Department, Uni- versity of Malta where he achieved a B.A Honours Degree in 2004, fol- lowed by a Masters Degree in 2010. Navarro had six solo ex- hibitions and participated in several collective ones both local- ly and internationally. The first mostra was held at the Castile Wine Vaults in Valletta, in 2004. A second one materi- alised itself in 2007 at Heritage Malta's Head office, in Valletta. January 2012 was the turn of Fáfnir, mounted at the Auberge d'Italie, Valletta. Another ex- hibition was organised at the Razzett tal Markiz, Mosta, entitled Passionate Tur- moil in 2015. Curated by Dr. Christian Attard, he organized Act Aeon, 2021, at the Malta Postal Museum also in Valletta. Reduced to Insanity is the artist's sixth personal expo and will be held at the Art by the Seaside Gallery, Senglea, under the careful curatorial ship of Mr. Justin Nicholas Micallef.