Interview with Roxman Gatt on his solo exhibition Mama’s Boy in the heart of Balzan
Mama’s Boy is the third solo show of the Maltese-born, London-based artist Roxman Gatt. The exhibition will mark the artist’s first solo exhibition in the place he was born. Roxman Gatt’s wider practice is centred on notions of sexuality, identity, and queer nature. Over the years, the artist has developed a vocabulary of materials – highly influenced by macho culture- to unpack patriarchal symbols. We have reached out to Roxman and asked him further questions about his solo exhibition and future plans.
What does your solo exhibition ‘Mama’s Boy’ signify for you?
This show is a reflection of my childhood. A time when I felt misunderstood by those around me, when I never felt that I belonged. Dressed in a 1995 Manchester United Umbro Sharp away grey football shirt, tucked inside the bed, arm placed around my mums neck, I knew it already, I was not my mums daughter but son.
This body of work is a gift to my mother, mother earth and to all the trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming kids out there.
This exhibition explores the notion of metamorphosis as an evolutionary process to unfold trans ecologies, embodied experiences, memory and liminal time. How is this showcased in your work?
Through broken wings and fluttering wings, caterpillars, butterflies, transformers, childhood and adulthood and all the in between. What the butterfly symbolises is transformation or metamorphosis, this is why it is often associated with trans people.
What is even more special to me is that my twin sister suffers from fibromyalgia and their symbol is also a butterfly. I was reading a book called Female Husbands by Jen Manion where they use the concept of “trans” as verb. “To say someone “transed” or was “transing” gender signifies a process or practice without claiming to understand what it meant to that person asserting any kind of fixed identity on them. In this way, we might view the subjects of this book as traveling through life, establishing an ongoing and ever-unfolding relationship with gender, rather than viewing them as simply shifting between two unchanging binaries.”
The phrase ‘traveling through life’ stuck with me hard! When working on my performance Smoke Machine, Lion and Jeep, I started thinking of this journey differently to one with a definite end result. This journey has a beginning and a middle, but I realised that it will never have an end. The caterpillar and the butterfly are still co-existing and transforming, the “broken wings” are always mending.
" This body of work is a gift to my mother, mother earth and to all the trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming kids out there."
– Roxman Gatt
You have mainly exhibited internationally so far. If you had to compare the differences between a local and international context for your work, how would you describe it?
The place I’ve exhibited mostly in is London, I guess it’s mainly because I have been living there for 11 years. I do love the art scene in London, it’s really diverse and there are always new things coming up. There is a great queer art scene in London too, which means that I’m surrounded by like minded people, and this is important for me.
I wouldn’t think I’d achieve anything by comparing Malta to London. What I can say is that both (in very different ways) have contributed a great deal to my work. It’s unlikely that I would be at the stage where I am at now with my work if I didn’t leave for London a decade ago.
London used to excite me a lot, now it still excites me but what seems to excite me a lot more at this moment in time is to actually create something here. It seems to me that it might be more needed, and maybe more impactful.
It is definitely a challenge and I do get mixed feelings, but the thing that I am really trying hard not to do is to compare being here with being elsewhere. All I know is that I want to give here a chance.
Mama’s boy was the first exhibition taking place, in what you refer to as your ‘cocoon’ in Balzan. What’s the future for this wonderful independent art space?
Firstly I’d like to thank you for your kind words! I want this space to act as a cocoon for those people who want it to be so. I’d like a space which solely focuses on queer contemporary art, and not just for a month every year but all day everyday for as long as it’s able to exist.
After Mama’s Boy closes I will be launching Rosa Kwir a project that Charlie Cauchi and myself have been working on for nearly a year. This project revolves around alternative notions of masculinity, bringing together stories of trans men, non-binary & LBQI masc- presenting people in Malta.
I feel that this project deserves to have a permanent space and I feel that the cocoon in Balzan would be a perfect home for it.
There are other dreams and plans for what comes after Rosa Kwir, and it is all very exciting but one step at a time and then we’ll see. For sure it will be Kwir.
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