Kenneth Zammit Tabona - ARTIST & ILLUSTRATOR
Kenneth Zammit Tabona's paintings, illustrations and designs have baffled all those art-lovers who feel happier if a "label" may be applied to a style. His paintings have in time been described as charicatures, as naïve, as primitive, as cartoons, as fantasy and in fact either all or none of these Labels apply! On a more elevated plane he has been described as a painter of Nostalgia with a capital N; depicting his Mediterranean homeland, Malta in its full blazing glory of stony ochre and sapphire blue. His architecture has been compared to Osbert Lancaster's while his people have been compared to Botero's and recently Picasso's erotic drawings. The fact that they evoke these labels and comparisons, none of which are quite right, makes the whole exercise of trying to describe his pictures even more frustrating!
The directors of Malta's most prestigious art gallery, Melitensia Art Gallery in Lija Malta, very actively encouraged Mr Zammit Tabona. Peter and Alaine Apap Bologna put up two enormous one-man shows in 1992 and 1995, both of which were total sell-outs! Since then Zammit Tabona strongly believes that the best exhibition walls are found in people's homes!
Kenneth Zammit Tabona's medium is Pen and Ink Gouache exclusively. His depictions of busy Street Scenes, idyllic Landscapes, grandiose Drawing Rooms and spectator-filled Balconies watching Festas grace the walls of discerning collectors in Malta and overseas.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona's Street Scenes usually feature traditional processions and church-related scenes in hues and costumes that connoisseur and polymath critic; Nicholas de Piro calls "ecclesiastical haute-couture". The Festa, the main highlight in the calendar of every single town and village in Malta an Gozo, is a great favourite. One can almost hear the bells pealing and the firecrackers being let off! Another aspect of the Festa is what is called the "Marc ta' Filoghdu" the Sunday mid-morning band march around the streets where the youth of the village (along with some not so youthful guests) have full license to get as plastered as the Bacchantes! One can imagine the cult of Dionysius being enacted all over again. Kenneth Zammit Tabona's Balconies are usually full of people looking at the bacchanalia with an oddly detached air while, in the street, the cavorting is just hinted at. Again one can actually hear the band playing and sometimes one can actually smell the beer!
His landscapes are usually depict ordinary people in contemporary dress who, on closer examination, are found to be re-enacting some Rape of Europa or Judgement of Paris! Sometimes in the distance, high above a courting couple in the middle of nowhere, the tragedy of Icarus is happening all over again. Many of his landscapes are imaginary however are dyed in the wool Mediterranean and inescapably Melitan!
One of the most original and exclusive aspects of Zammit Tabona's art is his particular ability to capture the spirit of Maltese Interiors be they Drawing Rooms or Churches. His full understanding of traditional Maltese upper crust décor and general iconography is the product of a lifetime of unconscious but very penetrating observation. His arrays of portraits with the good, the bad and the downright ugly painted in their full 18th Century finery rub beribboned shoulders with Mythological landscapes and lots and lots of Caltagirone jars, silver 'lampieri" and elegant coffee pots. They usually look out onto orange groves ending up in a "prospettiva" culminating in a fountain or a niche!
Kenneth Zammit Tabona has also illustrated books; Lost Letters - "an ostensibly historical divertimento" edited by Nicholas de Piro published by Pedigree Books, London in 1985 and Malta, A Collection of Tales and Narratives researched and edited by Robert Attard published by The Edward De Bono Foundation in 2001. This latter is the first in a series of three volumes full of anecdotal history about Malta. This first volume has been a sell-out and the second Collection was issued in December 2001. The Maltese love a good gossip even though the protagonists have long turned into dust and ashes!
The Din L-Art Helwa Heritage Map donated to HSBC Cares for Children Fund was also a milestone in modern cartography and is Kenneth's most ambitious and successful work so far.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona has also tried his hand at Opera Design and in1996/7 prepared the Scenery and Costumes for Donizzetti's Don Pasquale at the Teatro Petrarca di Arezzo in Tuscany and Teatru Manoel, Valletta Malta. His vivid and colourful design was set off by slick and elegant and highly functional scenario and was very well received by the critics in Tuscany and Malta.
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