Cluster (2007) Sculpture par Charlot Cassar

Born in 1974, I graduated in Art Education at the University of Malta in 1996. I then took up ceramic studies while teaching Art, reading a Master’s degree in Educational Management, camping, diving, doing voluntary work and still managing to find time to read and travel. I have now been potting away for the past 12 years or so and have no intention of stopping!

My artistic development is grounded in artistic discipline and my degree in Art Education has reinforced this notion. I have studied design, colour, composition, history of art and have worked with various media. I firmly believe that, at least in so far as the arts are concerned, one must first know the rules, and know them well for the matter, before making any attempt to break them. My artistic training in general has supported and still supports my development as a ceramic artist.

Initially, I focused on mastering the potter’s wheel, which takes a bit more than what the average person thinks. Working mainly in stoneware clay I have a predilection for wide open forms, bowls and platters but have also “thrown” bottles, teapots and other shapes just for the sake of the technical challenge that they offer. The throwing process is a sublime form of meditation during which machine, clay, body and mind become one and are projected to a higher level of being. The wheel remains my passion but over the past years I have been exploring other forms of expression in clay. In particular I have been working with slabs and wall hanging pieces.

In 2004 I was invited to participate in a ceramics symposium held in Serbia (this is link). Working alongside master ceramicists from around the world, proved to be a turning point in my career. A new found impetus to create culminated in my debut exhibition held at Del Borgo, Vittoriosa in 2006. I have since participated in numerous exhibitions and my work is represented in various public and private collections in Malta, Spain, Serbia, Croatia, England, Greece, France, Ireland and Italy amongst others. Some of my pieces have even travelled as far as Alaska…

Without doubt, my greatest source of inspiration remains the Maltese coastal landscape. My work evokes images of a landscape that is at once real and imagined, unblemished, serene, raw, wild yet contained in an apparent calm, revealing a primordial sense of longing to be one with the earth. My colours are predominantly Mediterranean – blues and greens, vibrant earth colours and subtle combinations of oxides, glass and even lava that together with the glazes, create a rich varied palette. Setting up my very own studio last year, has provided me with the space I so badly needed to experiment.

The bulk of my most recent work includes semi abstract bas-reliefs carved from slabs of clay, with other material added to create intricate textural qualities. Each piece is dried, slowly to reduce warping, bisque fired to 1000ºC, then glazed and re-fired to 1240ºC. The radical transformation that ea...

• Nationalité: MALTE
• Date de naissance : 1974
• Domaines artistiques:
• Groupes: Artistes Contemporains Maltais