Maree Azzopardi

The Crossings #1, 2023

170 × 155 × 5 cm Acrylic, Gesso, bitumen, scavenged bushfire charcoal, found objects on cotton rag paper

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With the current flow of human migration throughout the Mediterranean, my work comments on the new wave of immigrants/refugees, attempting to land, traverse and resettle from other nations.

The Crossings attempts to create a dialogue across the oceans and the generations, spanning frontiers, families, histories, traditions, relationships and change, including climate change. The black paint I use is made from burnt charcoal that I have scavenged after the Australian bushfires near my studio, or washed up on the beach opposite where I live, that I have then hand-crushed and mixed with sumi ink. I also record and collect the washed-up bodies of dead birds in my work, a metaphor for the many deaths on migrant boats overturning at sea.

Using the symbol of The Cross has been a recurring and reassuring theme in my own work as a multidisciplinary artist, as seen in different solo and group shows in Italy, Malta, Australia and elsewhere since the 1990s. The cross, as both a religious and a maritime symbol, has evolved over the years to express my belief and concern and outrage, very much like using ""The F word"" as both a celebration and an expletive of anger and frustration. The cross is also like the X marking the spot on a map where the treasure is buried.