View Gallery 3 Photos
Kenneth Zammit Tabona was born in 1965. He is the Artistic Director of the Valletta International Baroque Festival & Teatru Manoel; President Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts; Vice President of PERSPECTIV (Association of European Historic Theatres) and a Director of REMA (Reseau Europeen de Musique Ancienne)
How did you get started?
Always drew and painted for as long as I remember. First public job was illustrating Lost Letters; an Ostensibly Historical Divertimento by Nicholas de Piro in 1981. From then on it was rapid development with great encouragement from Nicholas de Piro and the owners of Melitensia Art Gallery, Peter and Alaine Apap Bologna.
What genre do you consider your work to be?
Pen and Ink/ Watercolour
Describe your work in less than 10 words.
Bright, nostalgic, atmospheric, dyed in the wool Maltese
Where was your first exhibition held?
Melitensia Art Gallery Lija 1992 first solo
How long have you been painting?
All my life…I never remember a time when I was not doodling or painting.
Which is your favourite from among your own artworks?
A depiction from memory of my grandmother’s drawing room featuring my grandmother, her great friend Irene Naudi, Censa Galea the housekeeper, myself and Cirillu the cat. This painting dating back to the 90s remains part of my private collection.
Whose artist’s work are you most inspired by?
Hockney, Matisse and of course Picasso
If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?
I have always been many other things besides and artist. I think I would have loved to be an historian, a writer but above all a musician. Music is something I cannot live without… possibly a viola da gambist!
What is the epitome of happiness for you?
A fabulous operatic production that pulls out all the stops by being a visual and aural feast.
What are you working on at the moment?
A series of Views from Windows which marries off my love for the rugged Malta landscape framed between billowing curtains and of beautiful objects like Chinese porcelain and Maltese silver.
Are you a morning person or do you come alive at night?
I work best in the quiet of the early morning; usually on the composition of the painting which is fundamental.
How many coffees a day? Don’t embellish.
Only one… at most two
Sundays can be very productive for some and very unproductive for others. How do you spend yours?
It’s a bit of both
Wine and cheese. Yes or no?
Wine no but cheese YES
If you were given a million euros, what would you indulge yourself with?
Moving to Valletta
Favourite place to holiday?
Udaipur in Rajasthan India
See more artists and artisans work in our book for just 35 euro including delivery to Malta (at cost to other destinations)
