Norma Cili - STANCE
Lockdown! That's what grabs our attention these days. I hope I caught yours now, but relax, I am not going to give advice on what to do (except that you should stick to the official sources for that), neither will I mention the C-word. Instead, I will talk about art, because that's what I really enjoy doing; and I think I should dedicate some more time to what is beautiful in life and distract the mind, mine and yours.
When museums and galleries were still open and social interaction was possible, Norma Cili, an American plein air painter and Gozo resident, took me on a tour of her exhibition titled 'STANCE' at Il-Ħaġar museum in Victoria Gozo. It was supposed to run for a month, but, of course, was put on hold due to the lockdown. The paintings are still in place though and waiting for 'normality' to return. In the meantime you will have to make do with what I am going to tell you about the exhibition and the artist.
Norma, who started her artistic career painting murals in Florida, eventually settled on plein air painting in the style of Impressionism as her genre. She has been painting outdoors for ten years, first in California, always during her travels, and lately extensively in Malta and Gozo.
Norma finds that the Maltese climate is ideal for outdoor painting, with its many days of sunshine and often dramatic weather patterns. She gets inspired by the simple views in and of daily life, especially in Gozo, enjoying the changes of light, reflected off the local limestone. Gozo's countryside and its villages provide an abundance of views that cry out to be painted, and Norma obliges.
Some of her Gozo vistas give the impression that she must have sent up a drone to take pictures to achieve that birds-eye perspective. No such gadgetry for her though! Instead, in order to frame the best views, she climbs hills and scrambles over rocks and through bushes - in the footsteps of the Impressionist masters - to set up her easel. That is how, for example, her paintings of Dwejra and Ta' Pinu have come about.
One thing that fascinates Norma is the diversity of farming methods on Gozo. She mentions the fact that despite the usage of modern farm machinery, it is still possible to spot that mechanical plough being pulled by an animal, or even a barefoot farmer with a hoe and a sack slung over his shoulders, on his way to work the fields.
STANCE is a fascinating journey through the past few years of Norma's artistic output. It delights with its variety of landscapes and still lifes. By looking at the paintings that were exhibited at Il-Ħaġar we can follow Norma on her Gozo expeditions, but she also takes us further away to different countries. In her earlier paintings, using a slightly different colour palette to her current one, she perfectly captured the stark sunlight and strong silhouettes of shade-giving trees in the rural Californian landscape. These American paintings are again very different from the views of Dutch canals and windmills, that exude the vibrancy of the lush vegetation of a rain-rich country which Norma explored in a painterly manner on her travels.
Norma skillfully brings to life the varied moods of different countries and environments in her paintings, executing them with strong brush strokes, with the colour often applied in thick impasto. She tells me that she does not sketch with pencil, she draws directly with her brush and builds up her scenes by applying the oil paints, carefully assessing intensity and temperature of the landscape in front of her.
This meticulous approach and her attention to detail also come through in her collection of still lifes: several smaller panels of colourful vegetables, as well as wonderful compositions of china or quirky decorative objects, most of them with a story to tell.
Indeed I find that Norma's works are all about stories. Sometimes they are hers, but often we can link her paintings with our stories, establishing a connection that makes her art more relevant and tangible. And in that way, the 'stance' from where Norma sees the world can easily change to a viewpoint we can call our own.
If you want to discover your stories in Norma's work, have a click through my picture gallery to see what was on show at Il-Ħaġar but also go to the artist's website to get an even better feeling for Norma's work.
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