The Passage Between Worlds

by Olaug Vethal

• Ink on paper
• 44cm by 64cm
• 52.5cm by 72.5cm framed
• 2000

In The Passage Between Worlds, Olaug Vethal draws upon the visual language of Japanese ukiyo-e, with particular echoes of Utagawa Kunisada’s richly patterned figures and multi-layered
compositions. Like Kunisada, Vethal allows figures, architecture and decorative forms to occupy shifting pictorial spaces rather than conforming to a single Western perspective.

Yet Vethal transforms this visual language into something distinctly her own. Birds move freely across boundaries, while figures and fragments appear suspended between the observed, remembered and imagined.

Within Vethal’s metaphysical world, these shifting spaces become thresholds. Time, place and identity coexist rather than remain fixed. The Passage Between Worlds becomes a meditation on
transition, a space where the physical and imagined meet, and where one reality appears to open momentarily into another.

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