ONE - UNFETTERED AND UNPREDICTABLE
AN ENFANT TERRIBLE
Jeremy Ellul (b.1975) is smart, alert and brilliant though informal. He is a conceptual artist more concerned with the idea than its material realization. Technique is rather less important than concept though his works are solidly material and physical in their simplicity of form. Jeremy is not hampered by tradition or convention. He dangerously hangs on a cliff edge but there is the excitement that danger and fear stimulate.
Jeremy Ellul is a self-taught, unfettered artist, without any preconceived ideas, free and unpredictable, an ‘enfant terrible’. He has already surprised us in the past -:‘Two Diaries - Exhibition’, Heritage Malta, November 2009 with Carmel Bonello (b.1960); one can imagine what he might do in future. With just nine years of work behind him he has already distinguished himself with his freedom of thought and expression. He is a bold and forceful Expressionist and hardly interested in historical sequence. And while he is primarily interested in aesthetics he experiments with technique but hardly conforms to ‘truth to material’. Jeremy Ellul is organizing a personal exhibition at the Malta Society of Arts Manufactures and Commerce at De La Salle Palace Valletta (27 Oct – 19 Nov 2011).
Naturally his Expressionism is at least a 100 years old but locally this event might raise a few eyebrows, regarded as unorthodox and a risk. It might even serve as a challenge and catalyst. It might stimulate discussion or create some controversy even though the media has exposed the public to wilder work. But that is why man is born free and unshackled.
Expressionism is an outpouring of emotion. It is a romantic movement that accepts harsh reality: darkness, night, death, sickness and disease, corruption and decadence (moral and mental) and life’s vicissitudes. It can be exuberant and extravagant, it can be downight melancholic and sad and at times even tragic and terrible. Jeremy is fearless when tackling life’s problems: death, disease or tension. His expressions of horror and ugliness are: ‘Risen’, ‘Leave me alone’, ‘I’ve had enough’, ‘Ecce Uomo’ and ‘Road Rage – Everyone is a Ticking Bomb’. These are a result of direct experience such as an x-ray of a person sick of cancer, a tired person ready to die, and a driver in traffic. Surely he can hardly be termed an escapist. He faces life’s vicissitudes with courage and determination.
In this collection of works Jeremy is less tragic, less revolutionary and there is a sense of serenity, tranquillity and even charm especially in his ceramic pieces. A case in point is: ‘The Sea around Us’ III and IV. They are delicate, beautiful and simple works highlighted through texture. ‘Wara l-Grigal’ could easily belong to this category too.
‘Seated Man’ in wood strongly refers to Picasso’s Cubist period. Being almost life size it is hardly a ‘soft’ expression in its geometric, hard conformation and a flat almost brutal, mechanical, robotic facial features. Its ugliness or distorted roughness is meant to shock. Though, depending on one’s point of view it could be regarded as grotesque and humorous. ‘Family’ in metal belongs to Jeremy’s obsession with maternity and the source is his ink drawing on paper, a pregnant woman: ‘Expecting’, in a metal piece ‘Life’, ‘A Figure of a Woman - Reclined’ and ‘Pink Lady, a reference to our ‘fat lady deity’. Some of these works were created before Jeremy’s wife gave birth to their son.
‘Tired and Emaciated’ and ‘Nature Retaliates’ are provocative works, tragic and horrific in their message. The artist’s feeling and emotion resort to sympathy and compassion in the face of tragic circumstances while in ‘Peaceful Warrior 1’ the artist seems referring to the results of war – pazzia bestialissima in a one-eyed owl with the other missing or gouged out. ‘Boiling Point’ again projects the horrid distortion of a face or mask with one eye or both missing the eyeballs.
Jeremy is a master of graffito (example: ‘Faces’), six expressions scratched with the wooden part of the brush on canvas board mounted on wooden blocks. Jeremy’s language is primitive not as in Lascaux and Altamira that can compete with Caravaggio but in match-stick design. His art disarms with its simplicity, frugality, roughness; and it is so elemental.
The artist has a series of wooden sculpture or engraved wood in low relief. The works ‘Creation’, ‘Man’, ‘Figure of a Woman – Reclined’ and ‘Breaking Wave – Għallis’ overflow with sensitivity and sensibility. ‘Life in the Village’, ‘Woman from the Village’ and ‘Women from the Village’ are quite revealing and worth mentioning especially the latter.
Perhaps “Paradise Lost’ is Jeremy’s best work. A man and woman (Adam and Eve) reach up to the sun for salvation. The images seem burnt in the clay of a matt ceramic plate. The texture, the primitive simplicity, the economy in the work is astounding.
Gabriel Caruana (b.1929) and Carmel Bonello are regarded by Jeremy as his mentors. They have influenced his work and initially both have urged and encouraged him. Gabriel Caruana insisted with the young artist to remain free and unshackled and to exhibit for the first time. Carmel Bonello inspired him to try new media and showed him how versatile an artist can be.
‘And most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition’ – Steve Jobs (1955-2011). This is exactly what Jeremy has done all along. He is surely not trapped by dogma.
The grey light of twilight gives way to darkness, a time switch. Night falls, the wind sings in the trees, the gale becomes stronger and the gusts form a pattern, the rain lashes down. Then silence reigns supreme. Droplets of rain patter on the window pane. They form pools. The full moon is obscured behind clouds. The owl hoots eerily. It is music.
09. 10. 2011 E. V. Borg
