A solo show by Joyce Camilleri with the curatorial inputs of Roberta Bertozzi and Elizabeth Grech, under the direction of Jo borg Gallery.

MATERIAPRIMA is part of the satellite events programme of the 2nd Edition of the Malta Biennale 2026 curated by Rosa Martinez.

Jo Borg Gallery
281a Manuel Dimech Street
Sliema, Malta

In a time shaped by rapid change, visual complexity, and shifting meaning, MATERIAPRIMA offers a reflective pause; time to look more closely, feel more attentively, and reconsider the communicative power of traditional materials and methods. This exhibition turns to the material and symbolic languages of fine art to seek new perceptual clarity amidst the abundance of visual information and conceptual ambiguity in the contemporary moment.

MATERIAPRIMA offers a slow and intentional experience through the skilled and tactile processes of making. By engaging with time-honoured materials Joyce Camilleri encourages the audience to revisit the handmade and the historically grounded. The artworks prompt viewers to reflect on how perception is shaped and how materiality is gently reclaimed through traditional methods and media grounded in slowness, care, and presence, fostering a mode of engagement that invites deeper looking and sustained reflection. The layered textures of a tempera painting, the translucent washes of ink on paper and the tactile presence of a hand-formed sculpture; these are not mere artistic processes, but ways of thinking and relating to the world.

The body of works on panel and paper are accompanied by a curatorial text in Italian by Roberta Bertozzi and translated in the English language by Elizabeth Grech.

The exhibition also features a poem written in Maltese by Elizabeth Grech in conversation with the artworks.

“Is-silenzju safrani jagħti fl-aħdar
u ġieli kemm kemm fl-aħmar
jitla’ minn din l-art taflija (…)”

***

“Tinged with green
and sometimes almost rust,
the yellow silence
rises from this clay-laden earth (…)”

https://joborggallery.com/