camilleriparismode is hosting its first exhibition of 2024 – Coming Home to Me, by Johanna Barthet.
Launching on March 25, the exhibition, which will feature some 40 original pieces, which will be on show for three weeks, on the third floor of the Rabat store.
Known for her figurative work, contemporary portraits and a unique expressive idiom, Barthet’s work has, in recent years, been dominated by a quizzical and enthralling series of ‘sitters’ and characters, who stare out and ponder the viewer, much in the way the viewer analyses them. Her passion for depicting the human form is coupled by an incessant need to capture the emotional and psychological stance of her figures.
Drawing inspiration from fashion editorials and social media platforms, Barthet, deconstructs and transcends her subjects, reinterpreting them and imparting unto them a distinct flavour, which leaves us to ponder whether each of her figures is, in fact, a reflection of the self, rather than an anonymous stranger. For this reason, Barthet is fast distinguishing herself as one of the more fascinating exponents of contemporary portraiture on the Islands.
Whilst having participated in numerous collective exhibitions, Barthet only debuted on the scene with her first solo show, in 2019, with Stories Untold, featuring female portraits and their untold stories. In 2021, she exhibited a poignant series of landscape paintings, titled Dreamscapes, at DESKO, Valletta, followed by an exhibition titled: The Little Room Upstairs, at Kamra ta’ Fuq. Most recently, Now You See Me, at Studio 87, featured a series of quasi 200 mini portraits or painted polaroids.
Coming Home to Me, will follow on the stylistic expression of her more recent work, yet there is an added intimacy, and a clear autobiographical element meandering through this series, which the artist describes as a, “A personal rendition of my journey through life and all that it brings; choices made on a path less taken and yet written in time; maktub.”