Il-Ħabba Tal-Għajn – Exhibition by Alex Dalli
Curated by Gabriel Zammit
“In the fullness of the years, like it or not,
a luminous mist surrounds me, unvarying,
that breaks things down into a single thing,
colourless, formless. Almost into a thought.”
From On His Blindness, John Milton
Il-Ħabba Tal-Għajn, a solo exhibition by Alex Dalli, follows the artist’s painterly journey from the figurative into the abstract. Sitting at the cusp between the Modern and the Contemporary, Dalli’s practice has evolved, over 45 years, from a desire to escape the difficult conditions of childhood to a deeper concern with the spiritual in art.
In history and literature there is an archetype of the poet/ artist who, as he gradually goes blind and loses sight of the external world, gains a deeper, steadier, internal sight. Homer, for example, went blind, as did Jorge Louis Borges, James Joyce and John Milton. Alex Dalli is also slowly loosing his sight. As he goes blind to the world around him Dalli’s paintings open up, through the deep darkness, a single bright eye (għajn), which has the capacity to pare back and reveal the centre (ħabba) and hidden reality of things.
Il-Ħabba Tal-Għajn follows the artist’s long walk down the luminescent corridors of his own blindness.
With poetic interventions by Michael Zammit.
