Artist Lisa Cassar is launching her debut solo exhibition, where I go to breathe, at Camilleri Paris Mode in Rabat on Saturday.
The exhibition is shaped by Cassar’s pursuit of calm and restoration. It brings together a series of ‘naturescapes’ that chart her return to the natural world at moments when she felt most in need of grounding.
Using saturated colour and fluid brushwork, Cassar’s work evokes both movement and stillness, each one inspired by a place that has contributed to her healing journey after a period of turbulent events.
Rather than broad horizons or sweeping vistas, Cassar turns her attention to the often overlooked details of the outdoors: the layered greens of clustered leaves, the shifting geometry of branches, the play of dappled light across dense undergrowth.
These close-up studies of local trees, plants and tangled foliage blur the boundary between realism and abstraction. Leaves dissolve into patterns; branches form rhythmic structures; colour moves in pulses rather than planes.
In a time when nature feels increasingly fragile, she feels compelled to pull it closer, to rebuild on canvas the sense of safety it offers her. The effect is immersive.
Standing before each canvas, the viewer feels pulled into a fragment of nature that is at once familiar and strangely expansive, a reminder that even the smallest corner of the natural world contains complexity, shelter and quiet.
where I go to breathe thus invites viewers to slow down, look closely and find peace in the intricate forms of the natural world.
The exhibition is sponsored by Veegeebee Malta, King Shoe Shop and Gauci Borda.