The Sunday Times - Sunday, November 4, 2012

Stepping out of the studio

The works in this collection are very much about stepping out of the studio environment, canvas and paint box in hand, to sketch in the open air.

Peter Farrugia speaks to artist Madeleine Gera about her latest journey across the Mediterranean and the exhibition it has inspired.

Madeleine Gera. Photo: Alan Carville

Madeleine Gera has worked as a full-time painter since 2006, following the opening of Atelier Madeleine Gera in Valletta. Perhaps best known for her commissioned portraits, she is an art teacher whose focus on technical excellence has won admirers and students in equal measure.

Gera’s latest exhibition, Malta and Other Travels, is set to include 25 paintings all produced on location around the central and western Mediterranean. The artist describes the exhibition as “placing Malta in some kind of context”, within a community of Mediterranean neighbours.

“I remember reading about the Norman king, Roger II of Sicily, who wore Arab dress and spoke Arabic and cultivated Arabic arts and sciences,” says Gera.

“This wonderful confluence of Christian and Islamic culture became 12th-century Sicily, and the Mediterranean today is still made up of a diverse ethnicity. Perhaps this exhibition is a beginning, and perhaps when the time comes, I can set off and paint Aleppo, Damascus…”

Bringing her aspirations closer to home, Gera continues: “Of course, Valletta will feature in the exhibition. In a sense, it’s the starting point. This collection is very much about stepping out of the studio environment, canvas and paint box in hand, to sketch in the open air.”

Gera describes the exhibition as an opportunity for visitors to join her on a visual odyssey, enjoying some of the region’s fascinating views. The images are “like pages from an artist’s diary and my travels aren’t over yet. At some point, I want to paint the eastern Mediterranean too”.

Talking about the interplay between international and local approaches, Gera is clear that time spent abroad can be invaluable to a Maltese artist.

“For the last 10 years I have been working and studying away from Malta intermittently, and it’s been transformative. Having said that, the community of artists here in Malta is very varied; there are so many artistic voices.”

It’s this sense of diversity in a relatively small artists’ subculture that gives the island a distinctive, difficult-to-define quality – though Gera pinpoints some developments that should be implemented, if art awareness is to continue flourishing in the future.

“I would like to see a first-class Academy of Fine Arts that focuses on the figurative arts within the realist tradition, something very much in the tradition of certain American academies and ateliers springing up all over.

“Becoming an artist is another matter and infinitely more subtle than learning how to paint academically. In other words, you don’t have to be academically trained to be an artist, or you could be and not wish to work within those parameters, but it’s an important element of technical formation.”

In order to achieve this kind of education, Gera says, “museums and schools must work hand in hand. It’s a dreadful shame that we don’t have a Museum of Modern Art. In a sense, generations of Maltese have been robbed of a visual legacy which we should be proud of”.

While an artist should be aware of formal elements, and be able to manipulate these to produce desired effects, Gera knows that the heart of every image is deeply introspective.

“I think my work has become far more personal, employing the skills I’ve acquired in painting to further my own artistic identity.”

While her work may not break new ground, it certainly offers a fresh perspective on the kind of beautiful attention to detail and technical mastery that so many contemporary painters overlook.

In reaching outside her comfort zone and beyond the shores of the island, Gera is offering something unexpected to the Maltese public. It’s the place where exterior and interior journeys intersect, presenting challenges and moments of sudden inspiration.

Ultimately, art patrons are the real critics when it comes to an artist’s success or failure in terms of pleasure derived from an art work – thanks to her skill, Gera maintains a respected place in Malta’s growing art community.

This latest exhibition opens a window onto a previously unseen side to the artist, and visitors are encouraged to stop and take a closer look.

Malta and Other Travels shows at the Chamber of Commerce, Valletta, from November 15 to 22.