Black is solemn and austere; it imposes itself and dominates other colours. Black has strong symbolic meanings and associations, particularly with death in the western civilisations. The colour itself is full of contradictions. For instance, is black a colour? Is black a hueless colour sensation? Black is the result of the three primary colours  mixed together. Is black therefore all colours mixed together? When one considers that everyone perceives colour in a similar way, nonetheless, culturally people are different and their intellectual response can vary considerably. This is how the universal qualities of such an emblematic and captivating ‘colour’ like black become apparent.

Even in the field of art, few artists were so daring to use black exclusively in their works.  Artists like Kasimir Malevich, Franz Kline and  Pierre Soulages made a name for themselves for reckoning black as the absolute colour. The work of such impressive artists came to my mind when viewing Christopher Saliba’s latest exhibition held last July  at Le Meridien Hotel, St. Julians. The collection of abstract works, entitled “Defining Confines”,  consisted of 14 etchings printed with black ink.  Like his colourful and vibrant abstract paintings, Saliba’s etchings are marked by the configuration of basic geometrical shapes and structures with an expressionist idiom. The complexity of his work lies in the meticulously monitored process of each image that has simultaneously the same sense of dynamism, looseness and spontaneity of his abstract paintings.Saliba’s etchings stand out black, powerful and compelling. Each work is a build-up of lines which are violently chiselled out on the surface of  the copper or zinc plate. Thick lines are scratched forcefully and repeatedly within the areas that delineate the basic structures of each composition.  From a distance, the eye of the spectator embraces the forms in their totality. At a closer range, the spectator realises that forms are not simply dense washes of black colour but rather a conglomeration of an infinite number of lines.  The mastery of  the technique lies in the artist’s ability to create different depths and tones of shapes with the controlled and varied force exerted by the steel point. Subtle grey tones made from faint and thin lines contrast beautifully with dark, black and deep cuts, the accumulation of which surprisingly gives shape to distinct and dramatic forms. Saliba’s etchings reveal light and darkness as absolute values and they prove that light appears with its greatest density and meaning when it relates with black. The source of light comes from the bare, white paper behind the imposing black signs. Some of the light areas appear lighter because of the different tonalities of black – even though the actual ink colour never changes. 

Saliba first showed interest in printmaking in 1997. He worked with master printers during his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti,  Pietro Vannucci, in Perugia, Italy. He also worked with German master printer, Eduard Schmid. Though printmaking enables artists to reproduce their work in limited multiples, known as “editions”, Saliba prefers to restrict his production to just one print for each plate produced. In fact, the artist is more interested in the technique employed rather than the benefit of creating multiple copies of his works. In doing so, Saliba affirms the uniqueness and distinctiveness of each work.

Conceptually, Christopher Saliba’s concern is that of defining or questioning the idea of confines and boundaries. Though the black forms created stand out authoritatively and solemnly against pale grey backgrounds, their boundaries always appear undefined and barbed, adding to the intense and dramatic character of each work. The repetitive and accumulative process itself implies the artist’s intent of exasperating the idea of finiteness of form, matter and space. This concept consorts with the ideology behind other works created by Saliba, particularly his installations.  Among other things, he is interested in expressing symbolically the spatial and psychological  limitations that people living on an island have to cope with. Surpassing confines and borders and looking beyond the horizon are common themes recurrent in Saliba’s works.

                                             Natasha Mifsud,  in Design & Décor, Autumn 2008 issue.

Christopher Saliba’s forthcoming exhibition is unusual though visually striking. Recently, the artist has taken a keen interest in setting up installations at unspoilt and undeveloped natural sites around the island. Sometimes, he even explored remote, steep and almost inaccessible places to make his works appear more dramatic.

The objects used were raw materials like wood and rocks as well as selected ready-made commercial artefacts. The result of these interventions are simple and geometrical arrangements inspired by classical ideals.

Mr.Saliba’s aim was to create an atmosphere that evokes spiritual and sublime thoughts as well as an intimate feeling of belonging with nature. Since most of these works, which the artist himself calls happenings, are usually impermanent and ephemeral, he documented them through photography.

He says that the environment became the real protagonist of his art. “Nature is no longer represented, like in painting, but presented directly to the beholder, though with a different eye and an unusual and unfamiliar way of looking at things.”

His prime sources of inspiration are the unique and evocative marvels of Gozo that evoke what he describes as the power of nature. Other sources of inspiration are great masters like the surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico and cinema directors like Federico Fellini, Stanely Kubric and Peter Greenway.

Thrrough his works, Saliba tries to raise awareness about the beauty of God's creation and man's relationship with nature. He says his intention is not to transform the environment, but to make it more intimate, by manifesting its essentiality. "Through the simplicity, the spatial clarity, the graceful harmony of forms and the essential, structural configurations that come into existence, I tried to enhance the idea of the primordial and the divine qualities of nature.”

The result of this photographic work is a series of powerful images in which nature and art become one.

Mr. Saliba is an established artist who spent four years at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia. From then onwards he exhibited his works several times in Italy, Malta and England. He is also a teacher of art at the School of Arts in Ghajnsielem.

This exhibition, sponsored by Bank of Valletta, is being held at the Banca Giuratale, Independence Square, Victoria, between October 2 and 14

                                                Steve Mallia, The Times of Malta, September 13, 2004

In Book V of Homer’s The Odyssey, there is a significant detail about how Odysseus, a far from willing ‘prisoner’ of Calypso on the nymph’s isle of Ogygia, often used to go down to the seashore and look out “with streaming eyes across the watery wilderness” in the vain hope of seeking a means to leave the remote island and go back to his wife Penelope in his native land of Itacha.

Young Gozitan artist Christopher Saliba is not really following the wily Greek hero’s insatiable desire to leave Calypso’s ardent embraces and her island, so often identified with the mythical Ogygia. Rather, he is enraptured by its beauty and the solace it offers to contemporary stress, but with some vital differences.

He is currently showing 20 photographs of his own installations at the Banca Giuratale in Victoria. Since 2001 he has put up four other solo exhibitions on the sister island, the last one of which, called “Idylls of Gozo”. In 2003, this same exhibition was also held at St. Columba’s church hall in London. Also, since 1998, he participated in a number of collective exhibitions held in Perugia, where he studied.

The current exhibition, called “Transcending the Ordinary: from an islander’s perspective”, takes its starting point from Saliba’s deep interest in land art. He uses raw materials – earth, sand, rocks, pebbles, charcoal – together with selected ready-made commercial artefacts, and assembles them in a natural environment.

Saliba explains the idea behind his work as illustrating what he calls “the expressive, emotive, symbolic, spiritual and contemplative qualities of my art”. According to him, man has nowadays arrived at a point where he has lost the spiritual security that he had before. The whole exercise behind his installations is to recoup that lost relationship with nature, and therefore indirectly with God.

Living in Nadur, which is the second highest Gozitan village after Zebbug, Christopher Saliba has come to better assimilate the feeling of being an islander where the surrounding sea defines the limits of one’s immediate belonging and yet links the small territory of the island to the lands beyond the horizon.

He has taken it as a habit to roam the coast of the island, finding little nooks or at times inaccessible places where a feeling for the awesome nature around him inspires him  to put up his little temporary structures, looking like snippets of vocabulary from the metaphysical language, against a backdrop of rocks, salt-pans, sea, sand or maybe even an example of a girna, that rural structure in the fields that throws us back to another time.

In doing so Saliba generates a surreal feeling, which at times can combine a contained drama with the beauty of the site itself. Perhaps one of the best exercises is that entitled On the verge where, against the vast, open shimmering sea and the sheer cliffs on one side, a glass flower vase is precariously balanced on a pile of loose stones a the edge of the precipice in such a way that the vase seems to be floating on water. Other works include the ceramic pot placed  on the skeletal framework of a wooden drawer set against the fascinating feature of the Azure Window, a single stone balustrade bearing a small sphere as blue as the deep sea beyond, superimposed wood structures framing other items of glass or ceramics as in Contemplating Time, a straight path made of shingles going straight ahead into the sea in Towards, the carapace of a turtle cryptically ‘heading’ towards the open sea as it appears both in Utopia and in Endless Journey, or a circular clamp of charcoal (maybe a subtle means of protest against human interference) on the deep, orange sand around.

With his efficient manner of eliciting a metaphysical dimension through simple shapes and objects, Saliba has well managed to ‘frame’ for the viewer’s attention what he calls “the primordial and the divine qualities of nature”. Nature is after all the essential part of creation, which carries along with it a timelessness for which, even if we are not subscribers to any pantheistic thoughts, we must be grateful.

E. Fiorentino, The Sunday Times , September 12, 2004