Sailing Around The Maltese Islands 1

by Olaug Vethal

• Acrylics on canvas
• 90cm by 90cm stretched
• 94cm by 94cm framed
• Circa 1995- 2000

In Sailing Around the Maltese Islands 1, Olaug Vethal captures the Maltese sea as a restless field of colour and movement. Boats and sails emerge from sweeping blues, greens and violets beneath a turbulent pink sky, blurring the boundaries between sea and atmosphere.

Within Vethal’s metaphysical world, the boats become vessels of passage, moving between the familiar shoreline and an unknown horizon. The constantly shifting sea suggests a state of transformation, where the physical journey becomes an inner one. Sailing Around the Maltese Islands 1 evokes the space between departure and arrival, the known and unknown, the visible and unseen.

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.