ANTONY MICALLEF JUXTAPOZ.COM 101moving so fast and everything is unprecedented.
Stories are shocking to us for a moment and then
we just move on to the next story. News is fed
to us on an octane level and it feels like nothing
sticks anymore. We are immune to nuances and
anything that needs our brain to stop, think and
make decisions. It’s like we have diabetes from the
malicious, processed clickbait diet we’re fed, but
we’re malnourished. We are fed too much through
social media and our delivery systems cause the
symptoms of lack of judgement. Everything is a
sound bite or a headline. News can’t be delivered
by tweets, and our attention span has grown
so small that we can’t process the bigger issues
anymore. We can no longer understand the wider
picture which, now, after all these years, has
fomented this insensibility on both sides, causing
even bigger problems with the very people we
disagree with and need to talk to the most; and it’s
self-perpetuating.
What spurned the shift in your work from more
general, social critiques to more personal and
emotional ruminations?
I think, after a while, I just wanted to simplify
things. My older work dealt with social critiques
all the time. I think I just wanted to strip
everything right back and block out all the noise.
Going back to how I started making art in the
beginning made sense at that time in my life.
I felt like I just stopped caring. Although you
never really stop caring. In order to make work
with social commentary, as with any work, you
have to really care about what you are saying
and how you make it. Current politics on both
sides of the Atlantic have really engaged people.
It’s motivated people to really want to have
their say, which is positive, but at the same
time, overwhelming. I felt like this with Brexit
and Trump. The dangerous thing with what’s
happening now is that we’re getting used to this
circus and have become desensitized. Those are
the most dangerous times, as any law can be
passed and anything can happen, and we don’t
notice and are too tired to care.
When I look at pictures of your studio, I’m
reminded of a baby rubbing food around their
plate. Were you a messy child? Do you like making
a bit of a mess? Do you have a cleaning ritual?
I love that analogy. That suggests you’re having
fun, right? I’m incredibly dyslexic and my
ability to organise is as bad as my spelling. My
studio always looks a mess to other people, but
I always know where things are, roughly. The
nature of how much paint I use doesn't help the
situation. At least a third of what I throw onto
the canvas falls off, so it wouldn't make any
sense to clean the studio after every painting
session, as it all takes hours to clean up only to be
repeated the next morning. I call it the abattoir
(slaughterhouse), my safe space where I can write
on the walls and do all the things that parents
would never let you do in your home as a kid.
The studio space is such a warm and precious
thing to any artist as it’s their world. I’ve always
said it’s like living in my diary or getting a hug
from myself.Although you’ve said you don’t want the
paintings to be viewed as portraits, what drawsyou towards the traditional portrait format for
many recent works? Do you want them to be
read as human?
I want my paintings to be viewed as beings.
I want them to have a presence of something.
It’s not essential for them to be human, but
as I said earlier, it’s essential for these pieces