Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/563633
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 30 AUGUST 2015 This Week 41 How has your time at MCAST shaped and influenced your work? During the past five years I have been at MCAST, I can say that I expanded my knowledge and tech- nique in art to another level. I see art as a very personal thing and my time here has helped me develop my concepts into something fur- ther, and pushed myself to work harder to achieve greater accom- plishments. Throughout this ex- perience I have met many people who influenced my work in one way or another and learned how to observe artworks from different perspectives, always to create better outcomes and remain unique in my style of work. At this point in time, what would you say is the main defining factor of your work? Recently I have taken a rather subtle and minimal approach to- wards executing my projects. I have minimized the use of colour, and focused on the main argument I want to portray. Looking at my portfolio one can notice that I strive towards the audience to experience something. Let the work take them to visualize an alternative reality based on their own imagination. What do you make of the local artistic scene? I think the artistic scene in Malta is rapidly growing into a more con- temporary setting. Younger artists are finding divergent ways to ex- press their works and galleries are becoming more open to new ideas. I'd like to see more importance and feedback given towards art, and new artists creating their own exhi- bitions in original spaces. What is the next step in your artistic development? With a lot of concepts in mind, I am generating diverse methods to communicate and interact with the viewers. I want to explore new tech- niques and combine my work with digital processes. I also find that it is important to incorporate different senses when interacting with art rather than just visually. I am also in the process of creating a series of artworks which relate to the topic of art psychoanalyses – finding how it is essential that one can be healed from everyday tedious situations through art. Hopefully I will gradu- ate from my degree in fine arts next year, and continue my studies abroad, which will open my eyes to new opportunities. The visual evolution of the Piano project WHY present two of Alex Attard's works which already had been shown within the context of a ma- jor one-man exhibition not so long ago titled The Overlooked Per- formance? Why show them anew in the rather intimate lounge room of AP, one of Malta's leading ar- chitecture practices? Maybe so as to re-discover their artistic quality, to re-reflect on their meaning in a different exhibition context ... Showing the skeleton and innards of Renzo Piano's exemplary con- temporary architecture of Malta's parliament-to-be, Atttard's 'Cir- cumstance and Articulation #1' presents a theatre stage, a laby- rinth of human-made construc- tion. The rigid geometric 'object' of rectilinear lines is dramatised by dominant diagonals. No work- ers can be seen on the photograph, but traces of human activity are visible through remnants like tools and other objects. The work owns a special qual- ity by depicting a frozen point in time, its meaning oscillating be- tween what eventually will be Mal- ta's parliament and an abandoned building site. The photograph reaches beyond what we understand to be docu- mentary photography: the image's ambivalence stimulates associa- tions of democracy's habitat as be- ing at times a theatrical, labyrin- thine platform of political power, demonstrating a still porous gate- way into democracy's future 'inner sanctum'. A second photograph forms a link in Attard's Malta Parliament oeuvre, its width of both realistic and semi-abstract imagery. We are given a view onto a con- crete wall covered with water- proofing bitumen material, asso- ciating generous, large-scale brush strokes of abstract expressionist painting, framed at one edge by scaffolding. The work is appropri- ately titled, 'The wall that would a canvas be'. 'Malta Parliament' by Alex Atta- rd will be on display at Architecture Project, 4, Sappers Street, Valletta from August 31 to September 17 Creating pathways to alternate worlds MCAST reserves the right to accept or refuse in part or in whole, any or all tenders submitted. Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology Administration Building, MCAST Main Campus, Corradino Hill, Paola PLA 9032. T: 2398 7100 F: 2398 7316 E: tenders@mcast.edu.mt www.mcast.edu.mt Invitation to tender Operational Programme I – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 Investing in Competitiveness for a Better Quality of Life Advert part-financed by the European Union European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Co-financing rate: 85% EU Funds; 15% National Funds Investing in your future MCAST T. 24/2015 TENDER FOR THE SUPPLY AND INSTALLATION OF KITCHEN EQUIPMENT Tender documents may be requested by email (on the email address below) or collected from the Purchasing Department at the MCAST Administration Building (at the address below), from Monday to Friday, from 08:30hrs to 16:30hrs. Tenders should be placed in the pre-addressed envelope and deposited in the appropriate tender box at the MCAST Administration Building, at the address below, by no later than Monday 14th September 2015 at 11.00hrs. The Principal of the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology notifies that offers from interested parties will be received for: Exhibition of photographs by Alex Attard at Architecture Project, Sappers Street, Valletta Mikaela Scholey Alex Attard