After Caravaggio | After the Body

by Olaug Vethal

• Vinyl Acrylics on canvas
• 148cm by 174.69cm stretched
• 151cm by 178cm framed
• 2004

In After Caravaggio | After the Body, Olaug Vethal enters into a dialogue with Caravaggio’s Narcissus and Martha and Mary Magdalene, reimagining their themes of reflection, corporeality and spiritual transformation through her own expressive language.

The mirror and reflected body become thresholds between physical presence and another state of being. Figures emerge, overlap and dissolve within fluid passages of colour, while the skull introduces an explicit memento mori, a reminder of the body’s impermanence.

Yet Vethal moves beyond mortality itself. Reflection becomes a passage between visible and invisible worlds, and the boundaries of the body begin to disappear. In this metaphysical space, After the Body poses an unresolved question: what remains when physical form ceases to contain us?

This work is currently hung at Spazju A, Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta until 25th October 2026 as part of the exhibition ‘Beyond The Visible | The Metaphysical Worlds of Olaug Vethal, curated by Christine Xuereb and in collaboration with Christine X Art Gallery