Dimensions: 29cm x 26cm x 1cm
Date of the work: 2015
Medium: Plexiglass and acrylics
Exhibition history: Mara at Palazzo Pereira, Valletta (2015) as hanging object; Ostrale 2019 Contemporary Art Biennale as freestanding object
Current location: Private Collection (Dresden)
Throughout her early body of work, Tabone provides opportunities for engagement through a feminist perspective. Temptation (2009) evokes Eve’s apple form the biblical creation myth, A Dazzle Escape (2010) holds a subtle narrative of a betrothal abandoned in search of freedom, and Souvenir dares to play with the taboo subject of abortion in a country where reproductive rights are a political minefield. With OM, feminism is overtly presented as a context for the subject matter of this piece.
This work marks a profound development in the artist’s output, which is also captured in the title of the piece. OM is considered to be one of the most sacred syllables, if not the most primordially sacred. It is also a homonym for the Maltese work for mother. It not difficult to see how the artists plays with the sacred sound spreading it into mother earth towards an earthlier sense of human motherhood. This time she does not portray a souvenir of pain but rather the suffering itself. A suffering which is simultaneously essential and life giving.
Starting with her preferred medium of transparent plexiglass, Tabone turned the piece into something that may resemble bloodied female genitalia, evoking a post-partum image. This is enhanced further by the gentle shaping of the plexiglass sheet to enable it to stand freely on what appears to be a natural lower body curvature.
The first time this work was exhibited, during an International Women’s Day event called Mara (the Maltese word for woman) co- curated by Tabone at Palazzo Pereira in Valletta, OM was displayed hanging on a white wall, not unlike the many other paintings by other artists presented in that show. However, when the work was exhibited again in 2019 at the Ostrale Contemporary Art Biennale in Dresden, Germany, it was displayed as a freestanding object, turning what may previously have been seen as a painting of some sort into a sculptural work.
