Maree Azzopardi mareeazzopardi.com
Biography
Maree Azzopardi is an internationally renowned Australian-born photographer and artist of Maltese descent. She has lived, worked and exhibited in Malta, Sydney and Rome since 1996. She currently lives in Sydney. Her work is part of both private and public collections in Malta, Australia, Italy, Dubai, the USA and Sweden, including those of the French Embassy in Valletta, Malta, Artbank Australia, the Collezione Farhad in Rome, Collezione De Cecco in Pescara (Italy) and Marisa Del Re Gallery in New York. Her work has appeared in numerous international publications including on the front cover of the prestigious American art journal, ARTnews (NY) (1998).
Temple of Tarxien, 1990, shellac, charcoal on paper, 100x100cm
Stone map # 2, 1990, shellac on paper, 40x30cm (detail)
Azzopardi first visited Malta as a child in 1976. She returned for the first time in 1990, in her final year of art school, when she discovered the Maltese temples at Mnajdra and Tarxien, culminating in her first solo show, Tarxien, 1993 (mixed media works and maps of the temples).
She has since exhibited extensively in Malta. Fishworks, 2000, (depicting Maltese religious imagery, fish, and a sense of place in the Mediterranean) was exhibited at The National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta. Operaworks (mixed media photo works depicting operatic costumes and the nude form) was exhibited the same year at The Settenalla Museum, Victoria, Gozo, Malta.
Celeste, 2001
Celeste, 2001 (a series of mixed media photographs of intimate poses in a Gozitan Palazzo that doubled as her studio from 1996- 1998, not far from the temples of Ggantijia Gozo) was part of the Australian Centenary of Federation Celebrations exhibited at St James Cavalier in Valletta, Malta. Spiritland, 2005 (a series of landscape paintings) was exhibited at St James Cavalier, Valletta as part of the Maltese Australian Chamber of Commerce Cultural Week.
In 2008, The Humana Series- Shadow, Relic & Flesh (photographs of relics from the crypt of the Church of St Philip in Żebbuġ – the village where both of Azzopardi’s parents were born) and the Chaos and Revelry Series (childhood portraits juxtaposed with religious relics from the Festa ta St Philip) were both shown at the Rotunda, Victoria, Gozo, and echo Azzopardi’s heritage and Maltese upbringing in Australia. Examples from the Humana – Relic and Chaos and Revelry series are including in this portfolio.
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- Relic – Sacred Feet
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- Relic – Stigmata Hand
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- Relic – Cloak and Sword
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- Chaos and Revelry – Wings.
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- Chaos and Revelry – Angel Blood.
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- Chaos and Revelry – The Family.
Her most successful show, I walk the line, 2010, a series of paintings, photographs and mixed media collages was a cathartic experience that brought together her memories of travelling through Australia, Sicily and Malta, and of a Maltese child growing up in Australian landscape. Chosen pieces from this series will soon be exhibited in Sweden, Italy and Malta in 2013-2014. Azzopardi is represented by Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea in Rome (www.ilpontecontemporanea.com) and Galleri Tapper-Popermajer in Sweden (www.tapper-popermajer.com).
Artist Statement:
I first visited Malta in 1976, at the age of 9. After growing up on a farm in western Sydney, I felt like I’d come home! The first time I entered my families village church of St Philip in Żebbuġ, Malta, it cemented my determination to become an artist. I will never forget the first sight of being gloriously surrounded by fat gold leafed cherubs, richly adorned saints with fluorescent glowing halos, horrifically beautiful relics and the most intensely suffering paintings, in the most ornately decorated, art-filled place I’d ever experienced. My course as an artist was set.
I returned to Malta as an adult in 1990, in my final year of art school. I was overwhelmed when I discovered Malta’s pagan history, particularly Mnajdra, the temples I had heard so much about from my father who climbed them as a child during the air raids of WW11 to watch the planes fly over. As a child he had no idea of their cultural or spiritual significance, but for me it was the beginning of what one might call an obsession to research, discover, document, photograph, paint and “pray” in this one of many special and ancient Goddess Temples in Malta and Gozo. Thus began a series of works dealing with the Neolithic Goddess Temples and my own identity as a first generation Maltese Australian. This developed into further research and related art work into the Cult of The Virgin Mary on the Maltese Islands and her relationship with these Temples. As an artist today my work still deals with the universal themes of beauty, suffering and spiritually which is evident in most of my exhibiting history in Malta.