Exhibition Review 2

TRANSITIONS EXHIBITION at 10 Green Bottles, Zebbug

This exhibition was a joint collaboration between two artists Kevin Casha and Ali Bosios , both of them have a different artistic background, however they are connected via photography. 

Upon entering the premises at the 10 Green Bottles in Zebbug, I instantly searched for the exhibition area and moved curiously towards the panels.  Since most of them were set-up in 2 opposite rows, one for each artist I decided to start looking at the panel produced by Kevin Casha. I had a quick walk from the first image up to the last one from the set giving them a quick over view, the first thing I noticed was that all the images were perfectly sharp and had that much sought for range of Blacks, Whites and Grey shades. Contrast in the images was enough to have detail in the shadows as that is what makes or breaks and image in black and white.

There were several images which I particularly liked, for example the SICILIAN LIFE which portraits a day in the life of typically seniors Sicilian citizens plus the bonus of the bare chested man on the bike. The only flaw on the image and in my opinion from all the set is the cut out of the far left mans feet. If I had to choose just one image from the set, that would be for sure the one named MEN’S BEST FRIEND. Its composition is well made with the man looking from above towards the newspaper, than into the picture. The chiwawa dog looking directly towards the viewer with his possessive and somehow threatening look and the newspaper heading title in Chinese all work together to make a powerful image.

Sicilian Life

Men's Best Friend

Opposite to Kevin Casha’s images was the panel made up by Ali Bosios, her theme was quite a controversial one as very few local photographers decide to explore and exhibit in the field of boudoir in our island. So I appreciated and realized that she is not a stereotype and has a style of her own.  However the images lacked to be consistent and since they were made of one particular specific theme I would more liked to see a panel were each image compliments to the others. Photographic and technique wise she used only natural light coming in trough doors and windows in most of the pictures, resulting in areas where a small fill light would have been needed and improved the image.  Her self-portrait named THE PERFORMER is the one that struck me off mostly, her hair is too messed up even if it was made that way on purpose it’s over confused, the grain is up to the limits and her face has too much shadow.

On the positive side I cannot not like the image named STRUT the way Bosios decided to crop out the head of the model added attention to the model’s body moving forward into the picture.

The Performer

Strut

Both Casha and Bosios had a panel of 11 images, placed together in front of each other one can easily notice the contrasting and different experience of both artists exhibiting there work. The venue (Ten Green Bottles wine shop) was ideal as wine goes hand in hand with art, since the production of fine wine is an art in itself. The area where the set up was made permitted visitors to the shop to view and appreciate the artwork without being of interference to other customers or being disturbed themselves.