What happens when we pass sunlight through a glass prism? We get a wide spectrum of colours, the colours of the rainbow. In order to reproduce this wide selection of colours onto a canvas, we neither need a prism nor sunlight to achieve colours on it but… brushes, palette, tubes of differently coloured paint and a surface to paint on. What else is missing? We need the artist, his/her thoughts and feelings.

At the Ministry for Gozo, in Victoria, there are a number of abstract paintings by different local artists who had once exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts. I am going to zoom into Alfred Chircop’s painting and John Grima’s painting and help you understand what abstract art is all about. Both artists haven’t dropped their palettes onto the canvas, as some people think that abstract art is all about. We don’t need a prism to transform the white canvas into colours, because for an artist, paint and colour transform the surface on which the artist paints, to attract the spectator.

The first impression that you get as you see Alfred Chircop’s painting is that he has divided his canvas in two, having the right-hand side painted mainly in blue and the left-hand side in a warm reddish colour. You cannot tell in what direction he has applied his paint because in certain areas, he has used diluted paint. This means that the paint is not directly applied from the tube but is mixed with another medium so that the colour does not remain so dense. Chircop’s paint is applied softly, probably using a soft-rounded brush, unlike Grima who applies his paint more harshly.

In Chircop’s painting you can try to find out whether paint on the canvas can be transformed into a figure or an object. Is that a monster lurking out from the blue paint? Or does it look like a flame, engulfing, destroying, or giving life? But why do we need to see some kind of reality in an abstract painting? The word “abstract” in itself means something which is difficult to define. So abstract art is far off from the real world, and no matter how good a detective you are, it’s difficult to define an object or a figure in such a painting.

Both artists use different shades of yellow, orange and blue. How many different tubes of blue do you think John Grima has used to make this painting? The lower part of the canvas is predominant with a rich selection of blues. In the upper left-hand corner, yellow, orange and golden shades dominate. Though the canvas seems to have an invisible line running diagonally from the top right-hand corner to the left bottom corner, the blue paint reaches upwards to entice the yellow paint dripping downwards. This makes it a more balanced and harmonious painting. It is not a flat painting, but it comes forward with the same vivacity that the colours are applied with.

Can you see how thickly the paint is applied? If you ran your fingers over the surface of the painting, you’d be able to feel ridges and dips. At first glance, the embossed paint, gives the impression that the painting is covered with pieces of broken glass. Although paint is applied in harsh and strong strokes, the artist knows well how to keep his painting balanced.

Abstract art doesn’t necessarily represent something like a person, an animal or an object, it doesn’t necessarily have a meaning; it is a moment of expression of the artist to communicate with us. This exhibition shows us how each artist talks to the canvas and the canvas talks back to us, and finally how we listen to it in return.

These works are exhibited at the Ministry for Gozo until the end of this month.

Send any comments and questions to: [email protected].