The exhibition Creation, on display at Gallery G in Lija, is both interesting and stimulating. The two exhibiting artists use very different media, but both are concerned with nature and history.

The viewer will be led through worlds of colour and dreamlike scenes to discover fresh realms and a new

artistic approach.

Julie Apap works in clay (and porcelain), one of the oldest and most temperamental mediums with which to work. She has come to respect and communicate with it, producing elegant and inspiring work. Her deep interest in the Neolithic Temples and the surrounding Maltese landscape, has shaped and influenced her ceramics, giving them textures, colours and provoking thoughts. She is also well known for her wheel-thrown, functional ceramics.

Ebba von Fersen Balzan is a versatile painter, known for her work showing her deep involvement and concern for the Maltese temples as well as her lively jazz paintings, executed during the yearly Jazz Festival. In this exhibition her theme has broadened to encompass life and natural history, with many references to Maltese prehistory and also to Brittany. Nudes have been introduced, giving the work a deeper, more human sensibility.

Ebba has based her paintings largely on her lino prints, which are collaged, almost woven, into the picture, producing many-layered enigmatic and mysterious images, or fresh and crisp thoughts about nature and the world around.

Julie introduces new wall pieces, some like paintings that emerge from the wall, and others collaged on different backgrounds. Her sculptural figures emerge from torn pieces of patterned clay and seem to have a life of their own.