Sunday 2 December 2012

THEGOODSHIPBLANKANDBALAST(AFTERBRANCUSI),2010

Thursday 29 November 2012

Saturday 24 November 2012

CV

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/28976322/Joseph%20Calleja%20Visual%20Artist%20CV.pdf

Wednesday 21 November 2012

‘For me your work is about skin’, artist Victoria Bernie told me earlier on this year. I was trying to describe what my work is about, at least in terms of its enquiry. It has taken me those three infinite seconds to realize what she might mean by that. After which the shift over the last six years from drawing to painting to sculpture and then installation seemed to fall into place. Space and time within a metaphysical enquiry bracketing the repercussions of the human act are still at the heart of what my work tries to observe, document and question. However the idea of ‘skin’ as that place where two separate entities meet and inter-relate, provided me with a physical space where these concepts can exist. This idea of ‘skin’ has also cohered the diverse projects that I have undertaken over the last three years. Each project has its own statement and response to either the site or the nature of the call but it seems that this fascination about the interrelationship of two separate entities is the spark and trigger how my personal angle influences subsequent work process.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

COLOURSOFTHELANDSCAPE

'Colours of the Landscape' - a Public Art Project, Western Isles Schools Project lead by artist Donald Urquhart.

Sunday 4 November 2012

COLLECTIONSIMONPAUL|6

J.K. Rowling | The Casual Vacancy | First edition. Signed by the Author.

COLLECTIONSIMONPAUL|5

Norio Imai | open edition print signed by the artist

Wednesday 31 October 2012

NELL'OBLIOonALLHALLOWSEVE

Wednesday 10 October 2012

THEDEATHOFTHEAUTHOR

'Joseph Calleja’s large ‘portrait’ made of his friends’ Facebook profile pictures was one of the most freshest and contemporary takes in the exhibition, yet the fact that it was a ‘resolved’, locked puzzle, killed the interactive power of the piece.'

http://redwhitemt.com/2012/images-of-the-self/

I have just finished college and it seems inevitable - looking back at my work trying to see what am I really looking at... what am I about... what am I trying to say /achieve.

I would like to start writing about my work - mainly as notes to myself, making my position hover between that of the author and spectator, thinking about its stronger points and its shortcomings. I appreciate shortcomings in a work. It makes it more mortal, real and alive. In actual fact I'd have it this way rather than seeing my work flying the banner of synonymity with a signature of recognition and perfection. I would also rather present my point of view that aiming at something that has never been done before. Real rather than Perfect. True rather than Genial. Finite rather than Immortally numb.

I started this post with an extract from a review of the exhibition Wicc imb Wicc. Pawlu gave me a great tap on the back for my work 'Għidli ma' min...' dropping adjectives of 'freshest' and 'most contemporary' against my work.

But I used this extract not to underline those two elements or the shortcoming pointed out by the reviewer (as to its interactivity). I used it because, for the first time, (perhaps this being my first proper exhibition as an artist and not a student) I just realised how the work stopped belonging to me and my thoughts the moment it was viewed by anyone else. As a student I wrote an essay about the 'death of the author'. This was when I experienced a side of that.

This piece was about self-portraiture. As I tend to struggle with my works with a tendency of being loaded with meaning, I thought that this was a characteristic of my personality and it would not harm the piece if there was an element of that in it. More than aiming to do a work of art, I wanted to give across a point of view riddled with underlying meanings. A puzzle with more than one probable solution was only one side to that.

There are several elements that make this piece short of being successful, I think. But these same elements are the ones that make the piece more humane, vulnerable, fallible and synonymous to myself.

The element that did not work (as I intended), in this exhibition was - each cell depicting a profile of one of my friends. This part of the work overtook the conceptual and formal existence of the whole piece - Most viewers with the ability to recognise their common friends or publicly renowned profiles have just seen this at the expense of everything else the piece stated.

It might have worked well or better at least if this piece was exhibited in a country where it is highly unlikely that any viewer could have recognised anybody's profile. It was for me a fascinating experience, something that I overlooked. In a way it could have not been truer to me than to have the public passing by the real meaning. But I remind myself, to make a distinction between the intention triggering the work, and the resulting work itself. I should have known this by now.

Another experience was when one person pulled me aside to show me the their knowledge of forced perspective applied by the skull painting in the Holbein's work:

I had to smile at this as the person apologised for their remark in the same statement for not to hurt my feelings. I smiled because when I used forced perspective I thought more of the RBS logo on Murrayfield's stadium than Holbein's work.

It was never my intention to make a work about the innovative nature of forced perspective. And even if I was the first one to use this technique, making a such a statement in a work with another agenda would have never worked. I simply used forced perspective as a tool - a solution to link the two puzzles together through the viewer only (i.e the portraits would look from the front only from a precise point in between the two puzzles as seen from the viewer).

As I said, for me it is a learning curve, always. Just because I am not a student anymore does not mean this tension has stopped.

It is interesting what jumps out at the viewer, and how little control I have over it. In a way I do not want to control the viewer. I have an agenda when I make a work. Most of the times I have to strip away my agenda s and influences from the work itself, in order for a piece to work. So at least I can say that I never have a list behind a work that i expect the viewer is supposed to get when seeing my work.

One thing that stayed present in my practice since I can remember trying to do something worth doing is the experimental approach. One positive thing about this way of working is that I always end up with a set of new questions, which keeps my inquiry fresh.

I NEVER depart with an aim of composing the 'best' or 'most perfect' work! The being 'original'. I despise such terminology when I want to describe my art practice as this is not what I am trying to achieve, not a priori at least.

If a work ends up with such elements, its fine, however some of the best things that happened in my work, I had to learn to read after the work was finished. It seems as if my work is always those few stages ahead of me.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

ROBERTCALLENDER

http://www.robertcallender.co.uk/

LIZOGILVIE

http://www.elizabethogilvie.com/info.php

Saturday 6 October 2012

LANUBEDELLANONCONOSCENZA

I decided to title this post as the cloud of the unknowing. It is originally a title of an ascetic book (christian mysticism book as i was corrected).

I wanted to find an image to hint at Dante's circles of hell - the first trail of the

necessary journey.

It feels a bit like that. Emotions hover from excitement to shiver of the unknown.

The unforeseen path lies ahead...

Sunday 23 September 2012

RESIDUUM

Residuum - a small amount of something that remains after the main part has gone or been taken or used.

Before this work process started, I had little idea of what to expect or ideas to prepare - I only knew (made myself decide) that I wanted to do something site specific. Old paint marks on the ground informed the whole work process as well as how other artists who were painters were treating the area of where they were painting (with protective mats covering all areas).

I decided to use the existing old paint marks as a source for action. I marked out the ground area where my space was with masking tape. Within this parameter I decided to use paint (gouache and water colour) to hide the existing old marks. Outside this area I decided to use the same paint to cover but this time to extend the existing marks. This non permanent paint would be removed as part of the work. It is the action that will complete the work.

A series of screen prints will be proposed, as a reflection on the completed work. The intervention finds its completion in cleaning the floor (by removing the paint which was painted in the first place to hide old stains within the marked zone). There are different treads of interest coming out of this intervention and these 3 screen prints help out to dissect such outlines of thought.

ARTSHOWER2012

An experimental intervention that I am carrying out as part of the Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists 2012!

Sunday 26 August 2012

STRATUM

This proposed work recalls and departs from the previous work that the artist has executed in May 2011 as part of a collaboration entitled ‘Cyclical’ http://www.josephcalleja.co.uk/cyclical. It will also inform a series of works that the artist is currently proposing the the National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta which will explore the idea of skin - the idea of it being a barrier between two entities.

Using impermanent pigment, the artist has made a painting informed by the sea as documented just off the island of Comino. Then this painting will be submerged into Kamo river accross from Weissraum where the left marks will document the distinction between something that looks like water and water itself.

The way this concept is executed is quite poetic and the process itself echoes Japanese attention to the ephemeral happenings of life, elevating them to ethereal levels.

painting hanging in gallery

painting taken down and submerged in Kamo river for 1 min

painting hanging in gallery again with remaining paint fragments falling apart by the effect of river water

Wednesday 22 August 2012

STRATUM

For this show in Weissraum, the artist is adapting four of his latest works to reflect on his practice and the questions his work is inducing him to ask. Influenced by his recent trip to Japan, from Tokyo to Megijima, and especially the Japanese people, his attention focuses on how things become embedded within a person or a nation. The relationship between how things appear and what things are has emerged as key in the artist’s research and this exhibition and residency in Japan will further that enquiry. Being close to Robert Callender’s practice, giving attention to the objects he observed and objects that he made, is providing the artist with the opportunity to witness how such concepts already exist in solid art works. This exhibition marks the starting point of the artist's residency in Osaka, for which new work will be created as part of the artist's stay there. This work will be exhibited as part of a collective at the end of September and shown again in Kyoto in October.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

oG|APPROACHING

I am going to send you away of my own free will; so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea

oG|APPROACHING

Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand with which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; then he swooped down through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. He flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the island which was his journey's end, he left the sea and went on by land till he came to the cave where...