The Phoenicia Malta is currently presenting the works of French artist Eric Kaiser. Titled Reflecting Surfaces, his latest body of work explores the shifting relationship between portraiture and still life through a series of psychologically charged paintings infused with colour, humour and subtle theatricality.
Developed during the final months of the artist’s stay in Malta before his departure in September, the exhibition can be understood as both a meditation and a farewell.
Over the past four years, Malta has become a key site of transformation in Kaiser’s artistic practice, and this exhibition brings together many of the visual and conceptual concerns that have emerged during this period.
At first glance, the works appear divided into two distinct groups: portraits of predominantly male figures and still lifes centred on polished silver jugs and domestic objects. Yet the exhibition gradually reveals that these subjects operate within the same emotional and pictorial register.
Kaiser deliberately dissolves the traditional boundaries between the human figure and the object world. His portraits possess an object-like stillness, while the still lifes seem animated by an almost psychological presence.
The title itself contains a subtle play on words, with “surfaces” quietly evoking “faces”, reinforcing the exhibition’s continuous dialogue between human presence and reflective objects.
Faces become surfaces to be read, while reflective vessels begin to assume psychological and emotional qualities traditionally associated with portraiture.
The figures themselves are marked by introspection. Their expressions are restrained and often detached, rendered in highly unnatural colour palettes of electric blues, cool greys, olive greens and warm ochres.
These chromatic decisions are not decorative, but deeply structural. Colour becomes a vehicle for atmosphere and emotional ambiguity rather than realism. Faces appear withdrawn into states of contemplation, silence or suspension.
Yet alongside this seriousness lies an unmistakable playfulness. Patterned backgrounds echo geometric textiles, wallpapers or stage sets, introducing rhythm and visual wit into the portraits.
Likewise, the still lifes incorporate intentionally mundane and contemporary objects: electrical plugs, toys, fruit, cloths and kitchen utensils coexist with reflective metal vessels traditionally associated with academic still-life painting.
A toy figurine sprawled beside a silver jug or the absurdly tactile presence of a plastic plug introduces moments of irony and tenderness into compositions that might otherwise risk austerity.
This dialogue with the history of still life is central to the exhibition. Historically considered a “lesser” genre within academic hierarchies, still life painting was long regarded as inferior to portraiture or grand historical subjects. Yet over centuries, it evolved into one of the most sophisticated arenas for artistic experimentation and observation.
Today, still life remains the foundation of academic artistic training: the place where artists learn to see light, volume, texture and spatial relationships.
Kaiser embraces this lineage while simultaneously unsettling it. His reflective jugs distort their surroundings, fragment colour and form, and suggest unseen spaces beyond the canvas. The objects do not merely sit before us; they seem to watch, absorb and remember.
Particularly significant within the exhibition is Kaiser’s self-portrait, the only major portrait detached from the patterned backgrounds that dominate the other figurative works.
Positioned almost as a quiet culmination of the series, the painting possesses a striking clarity and vulnerability. Surrounded by a luminous circular form reminiscent of both halo and spotlight, the artist confronts the viewer directly. It functions not only as a self-image, but as a reflection on presence, departure and artistic identity at the close of an important chapter.
In Reflecting Surfaces, Kaiser invites viewers into a world where looking itself becomes unstable, poetic and deeply reflective. Nothing remains entirely fixed. Surfaces mirror and distort simultaneously. Objects acquire emotional weight, while figures become strangely sculptural and distant.
The exhibition, curated by Charlene Vella, is open till the end of the month.
