Victor Agius: 'Breath in, breath out. Keep your eyes open. Everything happens for a reason'

A multi-disciplinary artist who works in sculpture, painting, video, performance and installation, Victor Agius lives and works metres off the prehistoric Ġgantija Temples in Xagħra, which provide a main inspiration to his oeuvre. His ongoing exhibition at il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, ‘Heart Of Matter’, creates a dialogue with the village of Mqabba, its quarries and the temples in the nearby villages, through a number of glazed ceramics and paintings with earth and mixed media. His artworks have been exhibited in numerous prestigious venues both in Malta and abroad.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Switch off the alarm and try to figure out what day it is.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Breath in, breath out. Keep your eyes open. Everything happens for a reason.

What do you never leave the house without?

Keys and mobile phone.

Pick three words that describe yourself

Disorganised, utopian, a daydreamer.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

My struggle in transcending my personal credo and surrounding heritage into universal concepts through a range of media of interdisciplinary artistic interventions. The courage I had in 2009 to team up with a curator, composer and an author and intervene inside the Ggantija Temples at the 2013 Ggantija Project. It was the start of a new me in my art practice that paved the way for countless contemporary interventions in historic sites, both locally and internationally. Other achievements include the invitations to be part of international exhibitions and biennials at Eduardo Secci Gallery in Florence, the Royal Danish Academy of Art, The Florence Biennale, Bonifacio Ceramics Biennale in France and at the prestigious Faenza Prize at the Museo Internazionale della Ceramica in Faenza Italy amongst others.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Playing Christmas Carols in summer, whiskey with ginger ale or red wine, or even starting an art-related documentary late after midnight upon returning from a busy day in the studio.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Time is precious.

Property and cars aside what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

A ceramics kiln and an original signed artwork by an important international British artist.

What is one thing you wish you knew when you were younger?

That when opportunities don’t come around, you have to just create them.

Who’s your inspiration?

The list is endless – Malta’s temple builders, Giotto, Bernini, Burri, Fontana, Caruana and Kalleya to mention just a few. However, I owe so much to my father Mario Agius, a sculptor in his own right, who came from a very modest family with no artistic background. He went on to study privately in Malta with sculptor Anton Agius and Harry Alden and furthered his studies from his own funds with British sculptor Ian Norbury in the UK in the late 80s.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Juggling between being a husband, a father, an art teacher and an artist… and I’ve been trying to update my website properly since 2015. It is still not updated!

If you weren’t an artist, what would you be doing?

Full-time farmer, not the Mistra type.

Do you believe in God?

Yes.

If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Ggantija, Xaghra Stone Circle and Mnajdra temple builders.

What’s your worst habit?

Leaving it till the last minute to be productive and reinventing ideas till the last millisecond.

What are you like when you’re drunk?

No idea.

Who would you have play you in a film?

They say I look like El Professor in the TV series Money Heist.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Hypocrisy, violence and greed.

What music would you have played at your funeral?

Final chorus of Matthaus Passion by J.S. Bach.

What is your most treasured material possession?

My studios and three tiny original terracotta works by Gabriel Caruana, Victor Diacono and Luigi Guacci.

What is your earliest memory?

I have blurred memories of my father building a nativity scene in the dining room which for me was an enormous spectacle, and also during my long summer holidays, on the scorching pavement of my father’s studio where I was creating a painting using some poster paint – my fingers doing a ‘Christ bearing the cross’, painted on the cardboard lid of a shoebox.

When did you last cry, and why?

After visiting a friend in hospital.

Who would you most like to meet?

Jannis Kounellis and Walter Zenga.

What’s your favourite food?

Tagliata with loads of parmesan and rucola, red wine and a Vanilla gelato with fruit.

Who’s your favourite person on social media right now?

No one in particular.

If you could travel in time, where would you go?

Right at the beginning.

What book are you reading right now?

I rarely read only one whole book at a time. At the moment I have these near my bedside: ‘Colour After Klein, Roni Horn’ – Kunstraum Munchen, ‘Identity of an Island Gozo between Past and Present’ by Mark Sagona and ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? Ali Cherri’ – National Gallery.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Bilocation.

What’s one thing you want to do before you die?

I haven’t thought about this yet...

What music are you listening to at the moment?

Enigma, Monteverdi, Jean-Michel Jarre, local funeral band marches and Ludovico Einaudi.

In the shower or when you’re working out, what do you sing/listen to?

Nothing.