Eleven artists were chosen to take part in the Late Night Prompts collective, an online creative project and networking platform designed by Emma Weller. The programme draws on aspects of AI generation, using a prompt-based system and applying it to participating artists. In this case, the prompt was The Passing of Time.

The resulting works were developed over a four-month period. Artists were not only tasked with producing their pieces, but also articulating them in relation to the guiding theme. The project presented both a creative and intellectual challenge, requiring the prompt to shape the process from start to finish.

For some of the artists, the theme of legacy emerged when reflecting on the passage of time. In Cycle, American artist Jessica DeMers reflects on the end of biological legacies, particularly in relation to the female body. The central female shifts between phases, rendered in red to suggest the blood moon, imagery historically associated with fertility. DeMers positions the female body as both measure and participant in time, proposing that endings are not opposed to continuity, but essential to it.

Other artists explored the indifference of time and its relentless forward motion. Works by Joana Simães, a Portuguese artist based in the UK, and Maltese artist Martina Micallef engage with concepts of memory, conveying a sense of distance between now and then.

In Happy Memories, Simães translates joy and youth as they begin to fade into the past tense, with her mark-making and blurring techniques reinforcing this shift. Micallef uses the cyanotype process, exposing images onto paper through sunlight and chemical reactions, to emphasise the evolving nature of memory and the way in which present becomes a more fractured past.

The forward motion of time is navigated in Shanice Farrugia's painting The Longest Conversation. The artist's past and future selves lean against each other in a gesture of comfort, engaging in a silent dialogue. Farrugia suggests that, across time, we become our own source of solace, carrying who we were while supporting who we will become. Therefore, the onward direction of time is not something to resist, but to embrace.

Other artists within the show decided to integrate time into their creative method. Icelandic artist Hallgrímur Helgason worked within strict, self-imposed time limits when creating the series Time on Paper - 2,2,2. The acrylic drawings were completed across three distinct durations: two minutes, two hours and two days. The longer the duration, the imagery becomes denser and surreal.

Whereas Helgason's Time on Paper accumulates more paint over time; Maria Wrona's In Dialogue with Brutalism evolves through the ongoing accumulation of oxidised iron and structural fractures. Through controlled weathering, Wrona corrodes the metal and concrete artworks using vinegar and salt, allowing the effects to unfold gradually. As the materials continue to react over time, they reveal the impermanence of man-made structures when left to natural forces.

A prompt-based project is an effective and powerful tool to produce a diverse range of interpretations. For UK artist Kika Sroka-Miller, the word "passing" became a key point of entry into the project. While often linked to the passage of time, it also carries layered social meanings, referring to being perceived in a particular way, for example in relation to gender identity.

The abstract drawing resists a fixed image or outcome, its ambiguity central to its engagement with "passing". If passing suggests being perceived as something specific, these works refuse such legibility, leaving the viewer to question what, if anything, they "pass" as.

The exhibition, which is curated by Emma Weller, opens on 1 May at 7pm and runs until 23 May at Christine X Gallery, Sliema. The works bridge international contemporary art scenes and explore time as both fleeting and continuous, brief and never ending.