From teenage sweethearts to artist partners

Sculptor Mark Anastasi and his wife Nathalie, a painter, used to share artistic musings when they were just 14. Claire Bonello met the matured artists in their Mosta farmhouse.

by Claire Bonello

The first time I met Mark Anastasi, he was wearing a sarong. I gave an inward snort. In a Beckham-weary world, you want your sculptors to be solid, rough-cut and stone-dusted, not metrosexual skirt-wearers.

Sarongs aside, Mark couldn't be less like Beckham. Highlighted hair, yes - but it's a sunbleached blonde not a carefully applied salon-job. The deep tan he sports is the kind you pick up after long hours at the beach and in the water, not the sun-bed variety. Anastasi is cool but effortlessly so.

You might actually think he's being cocky, especially after reading the blurb on his website (http://www.absolute.com/portfolios/c/coxter) where the blurb "what the artist has to say" reads "I have absolutely nothing to say". And when he says "I don't care what people think of my art... I'm my own critic" it's like Richard England-Love-statue deja-vu.

The artist dictates what's right and fitting to the uneducated masses. But Mark can't be bothered with people's opinions because his starting point is carving statues for his own sake, for the sheer pleasure or relief of creating a unique work of art from an ordinary piece of stone. For a number of years he couldn't bear to part with any of his sculptures. He got over this possessiveness when he realised that his works would remain his own, with the added bonus of being enjoyed by the people who bought them.

Commissions are a headache - he doesn't accept many of them: "I worry I'm not understanding or portraying what the person has in mind." As a veteran of "What the hell is this? It's not what I wanted" scenarios, I'll sit this one out, but I have to admit that I was pleased with the piece Mark came up with. It features his trademark ageless, sexless figure but otherwise it's a faithful portrayal of what I had in mind.

What you don't get to see is what Mark has in mind when carving out his sculptures. Only a few of them are titled. They vary from intricate, labyrinthine diminutive follies to smooth, fluid figures, to gruesome ex-voto throwbacks.

Wine bottles and glasses stand out in weird contrast against a skeletal backbone in the unhelpfully named Ward. In another untitled piece, the same wine bottles form a tableau reminiscent of soothingly dim bars and beer-soaked floors.

The stars of the show have to be Mark's lamps. Light falls in myriad patterns from the hollow honey-combed interiors of these lovely upended cones. Mark isn't into those massive stone lions which are de rigeur for Maltese new-money households. "Monumenti ma naghmilx", he says, meaning he's not going to be coerced into chipping out standard veranda-fare.

But his sculptures aren't all surreal abstracts. I spotted an amazing pair of slim globigerina greyhounds nestling on his studio floor. And then there are Mark's reptiles. Lizard hibernated at Chez Philippe restaurant last winter. It was modelled on one of the many big-time reptiles and iguanas which Mark bred in his workshop.

His reptile stint wasn't some amateurish one-off. Specially designed glass mega-aquariums with climate control housed up to 20 whopper iguanas. On the roof, Mark bred mice to feed to the ravenous reptiles downstairs. This might have made his position as president of the local herpetological society a well-deserved one, but it didn't go down well with his wife, Nathalie.

Tall, blonde ex-model Nathalie is an artist. The hair, the eyes, are all Anita Pallenberg, but unlike Keith Richards's legendary girlfriend, Nathalie can get down and dirty. Tiling, plastering - she does it all. She's been helping Mark in his sort of full-time job of converting houses for a number of years now and Mark says she's as deft a tile-layer as any of them. This is definitely cheering news - I'd rather have Mark and Nathalie laying my tiles than wait for the elusive Il-Mulej or any other tile-layer to appear on the never-never.

The Mark-Nathalie partnership goes back a long way. Nathalie remembers them hooking up when they were just 14. "We were really good friends, we were both artistic and liked doing different things, not what everybody else was doing." By that I presume not just the customary passiggata fuq il-Front topped off with the obligatory Golden Seven Torpedo.

"We'd spend ages just lying around, listening to progressive music, Mike Oldfield... looking at the fish swirling around in our aquaria." These spaced-out sessions later inspired some of Nathalie's paintings where her flamboyantly finned rainbow fish dart about in spectacular deep blue depths. The fish paintings are what she sees - she's been underwater. "It's like a ballet down there - everything's in slow motion. All you can hear is the distant drone of some engine."

The eye of Osiris which graces the Maltese luzzu, the ghajn, is everywhere in Nathalie's paintings. But like Cyclops, her exotic multi-hued painted cats have only one eye. This is done purposely, to create a focal point, to distinguish them from your everyday feline pets and to create a sense of watchfulness. One striking example featuring these ever-seeing eyes depicts life in the village where everybody waits, watches and spies.

In another painting, a baleful overseeing eye symbolises Nathalie's mother looking on at the high jinks that she and her twin sister got up to when she was out. Nathalie's mother was strict, prim and proper while Nathalie was running around an unspoilt Santa Maria Estate in bikini bottoms and Wellington boots catching lizards and snakes.

The affection she feels for the nanny who more or less brought her and her sister up is reflected in the picture Karmni's Kitchen. Complete with galletta plant, cat and home-made gbejniet, it reminds Nathalie of care-free childhood days eating hobz biz-zejt, playing in the rusty bus wreck outside and basking in the warmth of her quasi-adoptive family.

Nathalie's kaleidoscopic paintings and batches of Tunisian tiles offset the cool, shadowy interior of the Mosta farmhouse where she and Mark live with their teenage children Maxine and Nigel. Although Sliema born and bred, Mark prefers the slower, ambling pace of Mosta. The bar next door (is-City) is his living room and he says the people there are more real and down to earth. I don't hold with the generalisation that all non-city folk are salt-of-the-earth, honest Joes without a manipulative thought in their head, but when Mark lugs out my piece, the regulars are all there, ready to give a helping hand, to suss out the work and to direct traffic away from my illegally parked car.

And though its Mosta not Chicago, I get that Cheers feeling - the bar where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. I don't know what the crowd at Cleland and Souchet at Mark and Nathalie's first exhibition will be like - I just hope that they're as appreciative as these guys.

Mark and Nathalie Anastasi will be holding their first public exhibition at Cleland & Souchet, Portomaso as from October 4.

An exhibition of works by the sculptor Mark Anastasi and the painter Nathalie Anastasi (nee Trenchard-Lane) opens on Monday, 6 October at Cleland & Souchet, Portomaso, St Julian’s.

Chiseled Expression Lisa Borain speaks to Sculptor Mark Anastasi about making time for the one thing that truly relaxes him.

Mark Anastasi is the only wind-surfing, music-making, reptile-collecting, chess-playing, off-roading, house-converting sculptor I’ve ever met. He is distinctive to say the very least – exceptional in his perception, his interests and most importantly… his art. Nothing about this man is simple.

Mark was always in the clouds at school, carving soap bars with his compass in class. He used to carve airplanes in the bastions at St. Edwards. When he left school, he began finding old pieces of stone and would carve them with screwdrivers.

He simply takes a piece of raw stone and carves it with his homemade tools. As is the man, his methods are unconventional. He never studied art and doesn’t profess to know a lot about other people’s work. When I ask him what Michelangelo’s David does for him, he tells me that it does exactly nothing.

Although he converts houses for a living, he makes time for his carving, creating aesthetic pieces and of late, lamps. He reveals to me that there are two sides to him – one that’s the artistic dreamer and the other that’s the practical family man. He has to divide his time between the two, creating space and time for himself. Mark finds the craft as a way to relax; a therapeutic exercise that helps him face the hassles and vexes of everyday life.

Do you think that just anybody can develop this craft, or does it take an element of innate talent?

There are no rules. I’m sure if a “teacher” saw me carving, he’d tell me I wasn’t using the right “technique” or something…but I don’t want to use the same technique as anyone else. I don’t want to hold the chisel the same way; otherwise I would be copying, right? So, yeah – I think anyone with hands could do it really. It all depends on what’s inside them. The reason it comes so easily to me is because I don’t know what I’m forming when I start. It just comes out. It’s not like I’ll try and do a replica of Jesus and then if I accidentally break off the nose I have to throw the whole thing away because it doesn’t look like Jesus anymore…

Are you a temperamental artiste? Do you bark at people to go away when you’re in the middle of a creation?

I don’t bark. I just keep my frustration inside and then carve it out with the chisel. But yeah, I do get annoyed when I’m interrupted. It’s supposed to be my quiet time. Time to myself. It’s a very personal thing.

It can’t be very easy to have all this time to yourself with a job, two children and a wife…

If I’m given space for the dreamer part of me, I’m okay. I get freaked out if I’m restricted though. It’s weird. When I want to be alone, I want to be entirely alone. But when I want to be with people, I love being in a completely crowded room with lots of people to chat to.

Nathalie, your wife, is an artist. Does this make things easier or harder?

I try to draw a line between our work. I have to be subjective and objective at the same time – this is hard. My art is a very private thing. I don’t want to share it with anyone.

I don’t like exhibitions.. I feel I’m a salesman at a fair, selling wares or something.

I don’t have one. Every piece I do is a reflection of my mood at the time, so I can’t qualify if one state of mind was better than the other. I’ve done over fifty pieces and I can remember every single one of them in detail.

They’re heavily affected by the mood I’m in. I’ve noticed that when I’m relaxed, the lines are smoother, and everything is rounded. When I’m frustrated, the lines get edgy and more intricate.

In three thousand years from now, when archeologists dig up your sculpture, do you think they’ll figure out what they were meant for?

No, because it has nothing to do with culture or religion. It’s not even symbolic. It’s nothing more than my feelings being expressed…

I don’t mind. They’ll always be mine, so it doesn’t matter. Just because I don’t own them, doesn’t mean they’re no longer mine.

Look, I’ve done photography. I used to build model rockets; I bred reptiles (I had forty eight of them in one go). I went heavily into music – I mean, it all just came out of me… I don’t know what else I’d be doing, but I’d definitely be doing something.

Nothing. My favourite thing to do is nothing. Isn’t that what everyone really wants to do?

Not really… Do you think that your art imitates life? Or the other way round?

I hate these kinds of questions. I guess it’s art imitating life because it’s all about me expressing myself.

I can’t even understand my work. How are other people going to? It’s purely for the eyes, like music is for the ears. It’s not created to be understood. Critics pretend to analyze it and talk about it. It’s all a bunch of gabble.

What should we feel, when we come into contact with art? We should feel energy and understand the artist’s plan,

There are works, which are forgotten, others take time, and most, rarely leave an impression for life. But even in years to come viewing Mark Anastasi’s work will still burn inside.

Not all artists manage to achieve this. In general great art form differs from simply art. Great, in my opinion, being unpredictable..

I cannot judge or rank the artist as to whether he is great or not, for this purpose there are critics. I am simply the admirer.

It‘s impossible to simply pass them by and not stop to reflect on their meaning or purpose. Concealed deep within them is some unearthly philosophy. They should not be admired or examined only for form, for clever clean lines or elegance of movement. They should be felt and felt from within, to plunge deep into this artist’s mind.

In all probability the stone is taking command of the master, absorbing his thoughts.The sculptor is only a link in this chain. Many will hear this sound, this internal voice within the stone. But only few can hear it’s music and recognize it. This art does not only differ in form and content but above all in wild imagination.

Some works transmit pain and emotional experiences. Extremes are visible everywhere . The artist is eternally seeking peace, but having to submit to conformity, fragility & vulnerability

The other end of the scale, towers, buildings and the multistage cascades remind us of Malta’s unique architecture.

His sculpture is executed with huge subtlety and finesse revealing every detail in architectural or biological form, or even both together. Confusion and direction .Are these the labyrinths of memory? Or passages in our temporary journey through life? Obstacles and the painful choice of decision. Everything in life that comes his way makes him feel he is in the wrong lane.

Each carving tells us of it’s own experiences, a constant attempt to learn an eternal riddle and philosophy...

Behind the closed doors of his studio is his other life, coexisting in harmony and in parallel with routine and the normality’s of everyday life.

In Mark's latest works, smoother lines running from one vessel to another, ideas resembling a course or succession of events, but now quieter and more pacified. Oppression has found temporary rest and a condition of balance established .But for how long?

Or is it the calm before the storm, before a new wave of emotion? A new direction or dream , a new coil in the endless spiral so often depicted in his work

It is a fantastic, surreal and metaphysical world. It is mysterious, enigmatic, magical, enjoyable and fun. The spell is cast and rhythm and beat overpower us like witchcraft or hypnosis. In just five years Mark Anastasi (1961-) has made his mark in carving limestone with an effortlessness, enthusiasm and gusto that verges on the magical.

It is a passion, an obsession, a therapeutic fling best analysed in a compact, bold and strong male nude. Crouched and covering his ears he seems deafened and perplexed by a mad world without logic or reason. Almost losing his foothold on the piece of rock that supports him he seems insecure, confused, rejected and lonely. He has lost all sense of time and space.

This sculpture could refer to the artist himself trying to express his inner feelings and unable to relate his love of music and harmony to the chaos and cacophony of the industrialised world around him. His art could be release, a therapeutic effort to heal stress, strain and tension caused by his incredulity at such madness and discord.

The relentless manner in the way he applies himself at carving stone lends weight to this hypothesis. He works with such an obsession, fixation and abandon, he works so assiduously, he is so prolific that sculpture has become his life, his raison d’etre, his only passion. He contracted such fixation in a sudden and abrupt manner and since 2001 has continuously carved stone with an uncommon zeal and fervour. The suffused softness achieved, the smooth polished surfaces, the cold powdery whiteness of the stone emphasise the morbid, surreal and metaphysical qualities in his work.

Mark is a dreamer, imaginative and full of fantasy. He carves with spontaneity and improvises all the way. He takes a line for a walk. Destination is never clear, it is nebulous and therefore the journey is one of risk, surprises and mystery.

His repetition of forms and modules develop into grotesque, monstrous and ghostly works. In his work there is an affinity to Romanesque beastiary carved around church doorjambs and column capitals. His dreams are nightmares.

Mark exploits the standard ‘franka’ block with his feverish imagination, in an amazing manner. In vertical cylindrical modules or in horizontal tiered ziggurats he creates delicately honeycombed structures without weakening the stone. He forms towers, ramps and steps that spiral upwards towards the sky brushing the clouds in the process. The sources of his abstracted forms are architecture, archaeological ruins, beastiary, human forms, bones, vegetable life, fossils, masks and eggs.

It is amazing how he can express in stone the flowing hair of a woman ruffled in the wind or an egg held precariously in a hand with open fingers. His best works are those constructed from patterned forms like tiered saltpans or catacombs. Mark hews into the soft limestone like a woodworm or bookworm achieving the effect of coalminers in rock. At times it is merely surface mining, on other occasions it is deep mining.

Mark is like an explorer, an adventurer who is ready to risk all to get at the core. His endless search to get to the heart of the matter often ends in disillusion. As in life there are no answers, there is no understanding of things. And so he starts again to unravel the mystery. The process becomes endless and infinite. The more he carves the less sure he becomes of his goal. This predicament surfaces in his remarks about his work: ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I Can’t explain, I don’t understand’. In art there is very little understanding but as in his case there can be a lot of fun, enjoyment and satisfaction.

Mark Anastasi was born in Sliema. He started earning a living by converting farmhouses and houses of character. He loves architecture and construction but actually prefers the patience of laying wall and floor tiles – another attempt at therapy. He has learnt photography the hard way by trial and error. He loves music and he treats stone sculpture as musical compositions. Before taking up sculpture Mark specialised in breeding reptiles. He loves pets too, especially cats. His life is now dominated by his obsession in carving stone.

Mark is presently living at Manikata. Before he lived in an old farmhouse in Mosta, quaint and homily which he converted himself. From the wide and large French window at his house in Manikata he meditates on the Pwales valley lying below him. It is a panoramic view from a splendid and comfortable belvedere. He loves the tranquillity and serenity, the peace and quiet of this enclave. A thinker needs to meditate and reflect. The soothing effect his work evokes is not dissimilar to the atmosphere and mood of his ambience.

Mark married Nathalie nee Trenchard Lane in 1984. His wife is an artist painter. They have a daughter Maxine, twenty-one and a son Nigel, nineteen. Mark’s work can be reached and appreciated on his web page. Such work forms part of several private collections including the artist’s.

Mark is organising his fourth personal exhibition at the Corinthia Palace Hotel Gallery in Attard, between the 16^th and 29^th of September 2006. This event follows his exhibitions at St. James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity, Valletta in May 2001, that at Limestone Heritage, Siggiewi (2002) and at the Corinthia Palace Hotel, Attard (May 2005). He also shared exhibiting space with his wife Nathalie at Cleland & Souchet, Portomaso, St. Julians during the month of October 2001.

From teenage sweethearts to artist partners

Chiseled Expression Lisa Borain speaks to Sculptor Mark Anastasi about making time for the one thing that truly relaxes him.