Maltese artist Sebastian Tanti Burlò whose exhibition Antic Hay has just opened at Cicek Gallery sat down with writer, editor & curator Ann Dingli to give an insight into his exhibition which is on view until Saturday 31st August.
Ann Dingli: Can you explain the genesis of Antic Hay? What does it mean, and what brought you to this theme?
Sebastian Tanti Burlò: These paintings were mainly made between 2023 and 2024. I began seeing this notion of these beautiful spaces that we all like to inhabit and see – spaces that tap into the interest we have for peering into the wealthy, the wealth born, and the world around which they live. I was also looking at Aldous Huxley and reading about post-World War I decadence, where everyone was living their roaring 20s before the massive crash – living their life in opulence and not knowing where to go. ‘Antic hay’ means an absurd dance, I believe first referenced in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II. It’s about when everything is going wrong around people, but they refuse to admit it, and they just want to continue dancing while the world burns around them. The line goes:
“My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay”.
I’m thinking of the Maltese context as you explain, and I know you have broadened the theme for this show, but you always somehow start from home.
Malta is a petri dish or precursor to what’s going on around the world – that things are going very wrong, but everyone seems to just bury their head in the sand, to have fun and refuse to grapple with what’s going on around them. But it’s broader, it’s mainly a Western society or a capitalist society. And unfortunately, these paintings are not addressing many of the current crises, the war in Gaza, the extermination of Palestine, the riots we’re seeing in the UK, the rise of the far right. They’re not dealing with that properly yet.
Don’t you think they do link somehow though? You reference Christopher Marlowe and Huxley, and since the beginning of time, man has always used leisure, diversion, entertainment, as anaesthesia. It’s just a different set of palaces that paralyse our thoughts and feelings about incumbent atrocities. Our self-distancing never ends.
It’s a coping mechanism, which, to a certain extent, you can understand. But when it’s taken again to the Antic Hay, then no, we’ve gone overboard. We need to address things.
That’s what your work has always strived to do, right? Enclose people in a reverie of beauty,
but then covertly remind them that there is a sinister undertone. How does the series build
on the wider themes of your practice?
I’ve realised just drawing and painting horrible scenes gets you only so far. You have to first show the beauty and our achievements as a civilization, as creatures on this planet. Only then can you come at it with the criticism, with the punch, with saying – not everything is okay. Something I’ve always believed in is that you can’t change anything without giving people hope. You have to give people that glimmer of what an idea for resolution could be. That spark for them to see something that makes them think – okay, that’s where it is. That’s how we can go about it.
The scenes from Antic Hay are a mix of Italian or Mediterranean aesthetics and interiors, but
also now British.
I always paint from what I know and where I am. And because I spend so much time between the UK, Italy and Malta, it’s impossible not to play with what I see in these places. I love the spaces, the colours, and the produce that you see in Italy, but I also now have started to appreciate and understand British interiors. They’re now creeping into my work. The muted colours, landscapes, earthy tones – I’ve found out there is so much colour in mud!
The legacy of British painting and its canon can at a superficial level feel quite reserved. When you first think about British gentry in art, for example, you think about control. But there is so much freedom in the brush work and the use of colours of their scenes and portraits. When you look deeper, it really is a very explorative slice of art history. You yourself are similarly considered about colour. And ultimately, it’s about these dichotomies – freedom and control by way of their example. Discipline is what releases hidden chaos. But you are creating a different dichotomy in your work – you create these backdrops and escapist scenarios, and the dichotomy then is the social commentary embedded within. But it’s only because you create this dream-like world that you are then able to add truth. Because in a dream, well, your reality is always there. Dreams have no reason to lie to you. They are didactic and sometimes a nuisance – because you wake up and think, I really don’t want to be feeling that.
I do get people complaining that I don’t address things directly – that I’m not addressing
what’s going on in Palestine, for example.
But the communication of people’s plight is extremely serious and extremely sensitive. There
is something to be said for not creating work that won’t do anything to help a situation other
than fetishize a feeling of being useful.
Sebastian Tanti Burlò, ANTIC HAY, 15th-31st August, Cicek Gallery
