Marie Louise, you move between Malta and Sweden. What are you doing at the moment and can you tell us more about your EX LIBRIS exhibition?
My main studio is in Malmö, Sweden, but I also do a lot of work in Malta, where I have a home with my husband, Ġorġ Mallia.
Malta is extremely important to me as a source of inspiration in many different ways - not least in my interaction with the artistic community, where there is such incredible energy and passion - and immense talent.
At the moment I am immersed in work for the EX LIBRIS exhibition. Over the past year I have delved deep into the books at the Bibliotheca, focusing especially on old books that deal with chemistry, metallurgy and alchemy. After 'digesting' what I read, all that inspiration is now being poured into my own work. It really is a labour of love and I can't wait to show the results of it!
Can you tell us about the artworks that will be shown in this exhibition?
I'm making patinated copper 'books'. At a glance, the spines might be mistaken for actual books, but a closer look will show that they are, in fact, art objects that are not filled with pages. The books, which cannot be opened, contain texts, textures and structures (showing where the edges of paper can normally be seen) and they vary in size, with the largest one being 75cm tall, making it more of a sculpture than anything else.
Why do you choose to work with metal as the material for your art?
Twenty years ago, when I was at art school, I fell in love with a piece of copper. I was working with copper printing and the etched copper plate was just supposed to be a tool in the creation of a print on paper. But copper itself was so much more fascinating than the print, it changed over time and those changes were never transferred to the print. I stopped printing and continued working with the copper itself.
On the one hand, this was neither an obvious nor an easy decision. Copper is expensive, the processes are often heavy and dirty and I frequently hurt myself. The results are hard to predict (still - even after 20 years of working and learning) and there's a lot of frustration. On the other hand, it was an incredibly easy decision - unavoidable, even. I couldn't help it' - I was overwhelmed with the compulsion to work with copper and that feeling has never left me. I love the fact that the material is alive and changes over time. I also work with brass and bronze, which share that same quality.
How does your upcoming exhibition differ from your previous ones?
Generally speaking, it's better if the surroundings of an exhibition are as 'anonymous' as possible: a white space with nothing that distracts the viewer from the art. The Bibliotheca is the absolute opposite of this, and that is one of the main points of this exhibition. This exhibition has a central inspiration, which comes from the centuries-old books to be found at the Bibliotheca in Valletta that deal with so many things that have an intimate kinship with my art - metal, metallurgy, chemistry and alchemy. Both the scientific content and the aesthetic qualities of these books have inspired artworks created of metal that hark back to the originals, proposing an aesthetic continuation that often contains text etched so deeply into metal sheets that it is uncertain whether it will last forever or disintegrate, much like the actual books themselves.
I want to interact with the unique surroundings of the Bibliotheca, creating - among other things - copper 'books', scrolls and other artefacts. In fact, I'm using the very materials described in these books to explore the inspiration they invoke. You could say that the exhibition bridges the past with the present.
Ġorġ is curating the exhibition and we always work really well together. I'm also getting great help from Michelle Buhagiar and Violet Rizzo at the Bibliotheca, as well as everyone else who works there. Feeling other people's enthusiasm for something I care so deeply about is amazing!
The Bibliotheca is also at the very core of a marvellous city - Valletta. It is a city full of culture - both magnificent works and tiny ones, all contributing to it being a vibrant hub of cultural activity. My art will be at the beating heart of this city, a bridge to the cultural past, present and future.
EX LIBRIS is a bit of a dream come true for me.
How is the art ever-changing?
These metals react to chemicals, the weather, time and human touch, which continuously challenges, baffles, frustrates and delights me but is also an intrinsic part of the finished artwork. In a sense, the work is never 'finished, because it continues to live and, very slowly, change in wonderful ways. Some colours can change quickly in high humidity, but otherwise the change is a very slow one. Usually, you can only tell there's a very slight difference if you compare the artwork 10 years down the line with what it looked like originally. And it's been my experience that the change is for the better.
What are you inspired by?
Oh, how to answer this question fully! It might sound weird, but a lot of the inspiration comes from the material itself and how it behaves when I work with it. Even after working with these techniques for 20 years, I still feel I have so much left to discover. History inspires me, old objects that have been touched and used and show their age, the concept of time.
Nature and patterns and structures in nature inspire me immensely, which can probably be seen in a lot of the organic shapes in my works. Maltese nature is particularly precious to me and I think I've walked nearly everywhere, which has led to huge amounts of inspiration. But it's rarely a matter of all this inspiration being used in a direct, recognisable way. I digest it, feel it, and the resulting artwork is an outpouring of that emotion.
I suppose the works for EX LIBRIS are an exception, in that it's clearly evident that books - and different kinds of text, which I have always loved - have inspired them. But they are no less packed with my emotions and - taking a closer look at the books I have created, especially what is between the covers - you will see that they are not merely metal replicas of actual books: I've poured my heart and soul into them.
Is your exhibition somehow linked with V18 or Valletta as a cultural capital?
Yes, the exhibition has been endorsed by the Valletta 2018 Foundation.
What are your plans following this exhibition?
I'll be working on a number of private commissions. I'll also be dedicating a lot of time to creating a large work I feel very strongly about, but which I can't reveal just yet. I also have quite huge plans for the future that are slowly unfolding, but which will take a lot of time to develop.
Sometimes you put words and sentences into your work, how do you select the words/texts?
As an artist, books and words have been a constant source of inspiration - the meaning they convey, the purely graphic qualities of letters and the sculptural aspect of books. I never intend for the texts I use to be clearly read and understood. It's all about conveying a feeling.
That said, it is very important to me that the text is not just random, and I always choose it very carefully. A lot of the time it is excerpts from novels by Danish author Karen Blixen, at others it's poetry by my husband Ġorġ Mallia and I've also used some beautiful lines in Maltese by Lillian Sciberras. Sometimes a word can be glimpsed or maybe half a sentence, and sometimes the text does not look like text at all, but like a pattern.
The texts are often etched so deeply into copper and bronze that
they feel centuries old. The lengthy, complex chemical patination adds to this feeling. These etched texts are poised somewhere between disintegration into nothingness - and lasting forever. Texts can take so many different forms, crumbled 'paper' or a carefully inscribed scroll with rolled up layers of barely legible text. On close inspection, the details often reveal an entire world of their own.
EX LIBRIS can be seen at the Bibliotheca every day except Sundays between 7 May and 2 June.
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