The Sea - Il-Bahar - Al-Bahr
2024
"Il-Bahar Qamri" (The Moonlit Sea) - 2024 - Oil on canvas - 100cm x 120cm, represents the “Tales of the Deep", the sea becomes a canvas for storytelling, interweaving mythology, history, and personal experience. The work draws viewers into an ethereal underwater world where Maltese myths of giant sea creatures and ancient wrecks come alive in fluid, dreamlike forms. Scicluna uses aquatic blues and deep greens to create a serene yet mysterious atmosphere, capturing the beauty and danger of the unknown beneath the surface. Fish, coral, and amphorae drift together in a surreal dance, while light plays across the water, suggesting the movement of time and memory. Through this work, Scicluna emphasizes the sea’s ability to inspire human imagination, offering a place where myth and reality converge, making the familiar both wondrous and strange.
In contrast, "Bahar Xemxi" (The Sunlit Sea) - 2024 - Oil on canvas - 100cm x 120cm, represents “Echoes of the Abyss" delves into the more enigmatic and foreboding side of the sea. Here, Scicluna uses darker hues, creating a more ominous, introspective scene. The shadows of underwater caverns and the silhouettes of creatures, both real and imagined, invoke the ancient fear of the unknown lurking in the depths. The painting features the djinns and mystical spirits from both Maltese and UAE folklore, blending them into the underwater landscape as abstract shapes that flicker between reality and myth. In this work, Scicluna explores the tension between curiosity and fear, where the sea's depth becomes a metaphor for the subconscious—at once a space of calm exploration and hidden, untold stories that could rise to the surface at any moment. Through these dual narratives of the sea, Scicluna masterfully contrasts its duality, as both a source of inspiration and a place of mystery.
Dr Noha Farran
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