Past! Present. Future? (book)/Cluster 3
3. Relating to a Place? Overlooking the Obvious
In the two sections prior to this, there are artists who can be categorized as either non-Maltese or as associated with the Maltese diaspora. These include Jean Zaleski who emigrated to the USA with her family back in the 1920s, and Żepp Cassar who left Malta for Australia in the 1990s. It also includes Olaug Vethel, a Norwegian art teacher who settled in Malta in 1988 until her early death in 2007.
Zaleski was instrumental in the establishment of Fondazzjoni Ċentru Għall-Kreattività Artists’ Residency programme, through an exchange agreement she brokered with the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts in 2000/01. The very first visitor through this arrangement was Kirsten Jeffcoat who donated her Pilbara Rock Mosaic, which is a painting on silk. This is one of the first unusual items in the Spazju Kreattiv Art Collection. Although it is not easy to exhibit easily in a way that does full justice to the full piece, it was exhibited during the 2017 exhibition of works from the Spazju Kreattiv Art Collection, suspended in the middle of a large glass case positioned in the centre of one of the larger gallery spaces within St James Cavalier.
Ann Ropp followed Jeffcoat one year later and left a work of her own in Malta, which is held in the Spazju Kreattiv Art Collection. For Mario is a delicate watercolour painting on paper, in a similar vein to many others she has produced throughout her long career. Interestingly, the titular person's identity has not been documented, and it may be that the artist prefers it this way, even if there's no document of this either. Around the same time, Bridget McCrum also exhibited her work at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity. McCrum is one of several non-Maltese artists who have been attracted to the Maltese islands to create works in the generous light and shapes offered by the country.
Other non-Maltese artists whose work can be found in the Spazju Kreattiv Art Collection who have a similar working relationship with the Maltese islands include Graham Cooper, who is most closely associated with Isabelle Borg, particularly through their joint 2004 exhibition Two Islands at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity. It’s good that Cooper’s work has entered the collection this way but the absence of another piece by Borg from that joint exhibition shows how flawed the established practice of obligatory donation can be in particular circumstances.
Similarly, Elusive Dreams (2014) by the Swedish artist Marie Louise Kold is a work of diminutive proportions from someone whose output is characterized by large pieces. It is understandable that artists saved their better works to sell to potential clients rather than donate them freely to a collection that, at the time, arguably held no particular attraction to them.
Thankfully not only is this no longer the case, as far as this particular art collection is concerned, but it should also be noted with some emphasis that a number of significant works have entered this collection throughout its existence. This is fairly evident from even a cursory glance at its general contents.
Also of note in the cluster of works presented in this section are painting by two other non-Maltese artists. The first is Graham Woodall who was a British art teacher who taught in Malta for some time. A work from his 2007 exhibition Besieged at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity is in the Foundation’s art collection. He is fondly remembered by those who interacted with him during his art workshops in Valletta. He died in February 2015.
The other is Ljupco Samardziski (1947-2014) who was an artist and musician born in Skopje, Macedonia, who lived in Malta between 1995 and his death in 2014. Samardziski had an exhibition under the title Ode to Joy at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in 2008. He donated three works from that exhibition, all of which are acrylic paintings on canvas.