Gallery of Joseph Bugeja

Born in 1973 on the small island of Malta where I still reside, my childhood was spent drawing cartoons and fantasy creatures mainly on my parents house walls. After attending art classes from a very young age, I completed a 5 Year Fine Arts Diploma at the Malta School of Arts, from which I hold a Diploma with Distinction. My thesis was on Fantasy Art and it was a first for this school for someone who made the thesis on this subject.

After participating in various collective exhibitions, I held my first solo exhibition titled &lsquo Immagina&rsquo at St James Cavalier in Valletta, Malta in 2006. All the 36 artworks had a connection with the Maltese history or folklore, but obviously they had my interpretation. This was the first Fantasy Art related exhibition in Malta and so it was a bit of stepping in the dark not knowing how the Maltese general public will react to this kind of art. I must say that it was well recieved and reviewed.

I am also heavily involved in the Malta comic scene and used to form part of the The Malta Comic Con Organising team. I have self-produced and published three comic books so far, The Tsar Issue 1 which is a futuristic story on two issues (Issue 2 to be published later this year), written by Joseph P. Farrugia and two issues of Hal Mudlam, a horror comic book series, written and illustrated by myself.

I work both with traditional and digital techniques because I believe that every medium has his own effect and feel and so it all depends what effect I want to achieve in my artwork.