Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar and the Italian Cultural Institute will be holding an art exhibition under the patronage of the Italian Embassy, featuring the works of ceramist Joe Ellul Vincenti and Florentine artist Nicola Perilli.
Joe Ellul Vincenti’s working life as an architect immersed him into the beauty of shape and the harmony of numbers, designing churches and cupolas, villas and factories, all the time yearning for the moment when he would be able to do something more, something other, to respond to an inner need muffled in mystery and magic. It was time for ceramics.
One cannot miss the architect in his work, but then neither can one miss the youthfulness, the willingness to experiment, the freshness, the wonder at the shapes he sees and the clay that fires his creativity.
Many of Joe’s works show a sobriety of colour, as if seen in a magic and enchanted twilight. He looks around with half closed eyes, dreamingly grasping the whole of the past into his hands like wet clay, and reshaping it into a new eternity.
As Florentine as the waters of the Arno, Nicola Perilli was born in the aftermath of the great flooding of that mother of world art. On qualifying as a restorer he was engaged by the Soprintendenza dei Beni Culturali to restore paintings and frescoes that the world could not afford to lose.
Putting to good use all that he had learned of different restoration techniques and diverse materials, Perilli’s creativity and originality know no bounds. He treats these materials in a two-dimensional manner that results in works that are not exclusively dependent on colour. Thus his “Metalloidi” shimmer in shades of silver, copper, gold and rust through completely different materials posing as what they are not, in an almost mystical illusion of reality and substance.
Nicola Perilli has held a number of personal and collective exhibitions in Italy, France and the USA where his works have been included in leading private collections.
Admission to the inauguration is strictly by invitation.
Admission to the exhibition is free.
VENUE: Italian Cultural Institute, St George’s Square Valletta
TIMES: 7th to 21st November, Mon to Fri: 10:00-13:00, 14:30-17:00, Sat 10:00-13:00.