Antonio Mifsud is an artist who is synonymous with the sacred art genre. His current exhibition, hosted by Mosta’s Soċjetà Filarmonika Nicolò Isouard, is an exploration of biblical narratives through painting, relief and sculpture. Its title, Kapitli t’Alla (God’s Book of Verses), is indicative of the ethos of the exhibition, as each of the works is accompanied by quotations from the Bible. One could regard the whole set-up as a pictorial/literary journey – indeed, stanzas in a more all-encompassing, multidisciplinary poem of dualities and contrasts. Our religion thrives in such a milieu – light and dark, chaos and cosmos, good and evil, heaven and hell, sin and redemption, God and Satan; a reflection of the human condition which is governed by paradoxes that affect all of us, even the most grounded and steadfast among us. Balancing these contrasts is life’s everyday struggle. Mifsud’s work as a nurse at Mater Dei Hospital exposes him to much pain and human drama, to life-and-death situations, to hope and heartbreak. “I’m a person who tries to divest myself of the drama at the hospital by focusing on my art when back home. We are all human, after all, and these dualities that...
