Axelle Fine Arts is proud to announce a stunning exhibition of new work by internationally renowned artist Goxwa (pronounced Joshwa, the Old Maltese form of the name Josephine). In this exhilarating new collection, Goxwa employs her signature aesthetic, a profusely textured hybrid of paint and wax, to produce stirringly Elysian paintings akin to Italianate Frescos or Byzantine Icons. Questing to bridge fragments of the past with the sharp definitions of the present, Goxwa’s encaustic works belong to a realm all their own.
Goxwa treats her subjects, which range from simple blossoms to alluring maidens, with an intoxicatingly lyrical sensitivity. Warm, golden light shatters over tranquil azure and ochre hues, poignantly evoking a beauty at once cacophonous and serene. Luminous images evanescently appear through the canvas’s surface, purposely left full of irregularities.
Raised in Malta, Goxwa began painting as a child, inspired by the antiquated sun-drenched walls of her native Valletta. Steadfastly independent, nineteen year old Goxwa left Malta for London, where she studied at St. Martins Art School. She later migrated to Paris where she won a scholarship to study for a year at the Cite des Arts. However, it was not until years later, while studying film at Emerson College in Boston that she began experimenting with encaustic, or wax, materials. Using a palette knife to apply her paint in thick, aggressive strokes, Goxwa began to link, with richly illuminated colors, the contemporary to the ancient.
Goxwa’s first solo exhibition, in a Cambridge, Massachusetts restaurant, showcased these intriguing encaustic works. From Cambridge, Goxwa’s work traveled to galleries in Paris, New York, San Francisco and London, finding homes in important private collections throughout Europe and the United States. Now, twenty-five years later, Axelle Fine Arts is honored to show Goxwa’s poetically timeless paintings once again in Boston.
EXHIBITION DATES: June 3rd – June 28th
ARTIST RECEPTION: Thursday, June 3rd 6 – 8 pm
*RSVP required: boston@axelle.com or 617.450.0700
Copyright © 2009 The Newbury Line
