Sinuous lines, primitive textural qualities and deep earthy colours are just some of the qualities in the ceramic works that Charlot Cassar presents in his second exhibition, currently at the Loggia, Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta. The works evoke images of a landscape at once real and imagined, that is unblemished, serene, raw, wild yet contained in an apparent calm. Compositions in clay that allude to fields, cliffs, shorelines, rock formations and the occasional saltpan reminiscent of Cassar’s first exhibition in 2006.

Charlot Cassar was born in Mtarfa in 1974. He studied Art and Art Education at the University of Malta, graduating in 1996. He then started studying pottery and ceramics under Julie Apap while at the same time teaching Art and reading a Master’s degree in Educational Management. For a good number of years Cassar worked out of the limelight, initially mastering the potter’s wheel, then moving on to explore other ways of expression, always in clay. In summer 2004, the artist was invited to a ceramic’s symposium in Serbia. Working alongside master ceramicists from around the world, proved to be a turning point in his career. A new found impetus to create culminated in Cassar’s first exhibition held at Del Borgo, Vittoriosa.. Since then, he has participated in numerous collective exhibitions and competitions. His work has been exhibited in Croatia, Serbia and Spain and some of his pieces have travelled as far as Alaska.

Cassar talks of his current exhibition in terms of an exploratory journey, with hints of what is to come. “I have been experimenting with the textural qualities that are intrinsic to the medium. A slab of dried clay, cracked, provides the starting point for one of my pieces, as do the leftovers from a previous work, sometimes completely dry and about to be recycled. It is very much like a game, one which I really enjoy playing and which I hope, I am good at. There are infinite possibilities and setting up my own studio last year, has provided me with the space I so badly needed to experiment”.

All the pieces presented in this exhibition were made from stoneware clay. Each piece is dried, slowly to reduce warping, bisque fired to 1000ºC, then glazed and re-fired to 1240ºC. The radical transformation that each piece goes through is only fully appreciated at the very end of the process. Each work stems from a specific idea that is combined to the artist’s visual and personal experiences and the possibilities that the clay offers to create something that is essentially unique and beautiful.