Andrew Micallef (1969- ) is presenting his latest collection of neo-realist paintings, An Outlook to Diversity, at the Ministry for Tourism and Culture, Merchant's Street, Valletta. Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech will inaugurate this rare and unique collection of around 40 works, followed by an introduction by Chev. Maurice Mizzi on Tuesday, 3 April at 7pm. The Culture Ministry, Farsons, BOV and The Picture House are sponsoring this event.

Brought up in Zebbug, a village virtually surrounded 360 degrees by countryside, Andrew used to accompany his father on long walks. That instilled in him his first love for nature, particularly for birds. He still recalls the moment when he would long for his return home so he could start sketching and drawing what he had captured in his mind: the soaring buzzard, a kestrel hovering, a warbler disappearing into a hawthorn tree... Constantly portraying birds enabled him to develop a style of painstaking detail, not only in terms of the bird itself but also for the habitat for each and every species depicted.

His first solo exhibition was in 1986 at St John's Co-Cathedral Annex in Valletta entitled Bird Studies. This was followed by another show on the same subject in 1989 at the Natural History Museum in Mdina. As the years passed by he changed both subject and medium and started giving particular attention to our rich and unique architectural legacy. Triumphant gates, arches, auberges, chapels and allegorical coats-of-arms all became his main focus. The ideal medium for these chosen topics was pen and ink: through the articulate use of cross-hatching it creates an illusion of etching or engraving. Two exhibitions on this theme were held in 1999 and 2005, both at the Museum of Fine Arts in

Valletta.

Andrew Micallef is a designer of at least eight sheets of stamps about endemic

fauna and flora. Maltapost will issue the set about fruits this month. The sets include birds, fish, shells, cactus and succulents, mammals, reptiles and insects. These sets are quite popular and the didactic scope has achieved its main purpose to educate the people about our natural heritage.

An Outlook to Diversity is an exhibition of around 40 acrylic and pen and ink

works which portray yet again Andrew's love for nature and tries to take the viewers on paths that lead to tangible and actual experiences which we normally fail to acknowledge.

The exhibition will run until 25 April. For more information visit:

www.micallefandrew.com