NYAB Event - Ġoxwa Exhibition

Ġoxwa Exhibition

Axelle Fine Arts

This event has ended.

"There is clearly something in Goxwa's painting which attracts people at first glance. The sources of the attraction, however, are not easy to identify just as her work cannot readily be classified into in any school or style. Bob Wernick, a close friend of the artist, tells a story to illustrate the mystifying allure of her work. While walking down the rue de Seine in Paris on his way to the opening of a Goxwa Borg show, he found himself following a little group of art-lovers lead by a young man playing the role of tour guide, offering explanations of the artwork along the way. He stopped at a window, pointed inside and said, "Conceptualism." The followers all stopped, looked, nodded, and walked on. At the next gallery window it was "Minimalism," and again they all stopped, looked and nodded and walked on. When they arrived at the work of Goxwa at Galerie de l'Europe, the young man found no words to say. After a moment of silently gazing at her paintings his followers all walked in the door.

In her work, Goxwa combines highly individual colors, wonderfully thick textures of oil and wax and a light that you will find nowhere else. She draws inspiration for this light from many sources; from Malta, her native land, from the walls of Pompeii, from the Mediterranean surely, and from certain skies of Paris, where she currently lives. Viewing her work often generates more questions than answers for the beholder; who are these people? To what time period do these figures belong? And what exactly are they doing? Nevertheless, her subjects hold a very strong alluring presence; one is drawn to the mystery floating in every painting.

Similarly with her subjects one is never really sure if they are appearing or disappearing, emerging from or fading into the warm, rich textures of the background. “Walls,” says Goxwa, “are like masks, simultaneously concealing and revealing the living beings behind them.” The backgrounds of her paintings are mottled with splashes of color and seemingly disordered etchings, which represent her walls.

Goxwa paints with a palette knife, using the tool just as the word ‘knife’ would imply. She is fencing with the canvas flat against the wall, using the hard instrument to produce the most delicate beauty. We can only imagine the amount of effort it must have taken to produce an impression, the sparkle of an eye, the soft light of day, with the tip of a sword.

Although a certain "fresco" effect has always marked the work of Goxwa, new forms are constantly appearing in her paintings. We find in her new work vaults or circles that frame faces, leading the spectator to wonder if he is seeing a subject or its reflection, never sure of just how much "representation" is at work. Her women, flowers, birds, boats, landscapes and monuments all form something like an archeology of sensuality, the bases of the subtle force of beauty which outwits Time."