Interview with Steve Bonello (he calls Malta home)

Unfinished 

Super Moon

Propaganda

1.What inspired you to become an artist?

 I think it was my exposure to art history in secondary school which originally lit a flicker of interest. When I was like 15 years old or so I started doing precise architectural renderings – mostly from imagination… but I used to love the design, the symmetry – all that.

2.Are you the typical starving artist?( please explain on this question your job as an artist and if you have another job alongside it or not because people have to see this point and see how to run their art business and whatnot) 

I’m surviving. But this needs some explanation. I worked for 30 years at the Maltese national airline (Air Malta) Like most legacy airlines it has suffered in recent years. Five years ago employees were offered a severance package to relinquish their job voluntarily and I took the plunge. After that I worked for 18 months at a land transport company and was then made redundant for the first time in my life.  Finding a job proved difficult and I started pitching for freelance work here and there to add to my freelance cartooning for a local paper – which I have done for some 26 years now. I have been a full-time artist for four years now.

3.How do the ideas come to you?

Mostly I doodle; I sketch (mostly imaginary) people and faces…look at different sketches and sometimes I see connections…the possibility of a composition or a ‘story’ and then I start with a drawing proper. I am interested in people and (very broadly) the human condition with all its good, bad and ugly. And most of all I am attracted by the interaction between the sexes...whether it’s love, attraction, infatuation, suspicion, etc.

4.Are you self taught or did you go to school?

I did a short stint at art school but I think I was there mostly for the socializing. I developed my style/s by looking at as many artists as possible. My current ‘cartoon style’ imagery originally stems from a hugely influential exhibition I saw in London many many years back. The exhibition was Ralph Steadman’s ‘Between The Eyes’ on London’s South Bank and the year was probably 1985.

5.How many art pieces have you sold?

Half of my larger works in paper have probably found new homes I’m guessing. I would like most of my work to be in loving homes by the time I come round to bucket-kicking time…

 6.Where have you exhibited your art?

I have had two solo exhibitions of my work here in Malta and taken part in a few collective ones as well. I was also one of the artists chosen when a representative collection of contemporary Maltese art made its way to Florence in Italy way back in the early nineties. Two years ago I exhibited work at the European Parliament in Strasbourg along with cartoonists from each of the European Union’s 28 countries.

7.What else do you want to say about your art?

Well, what can one say? I love what I am doing. The fact that some people love and relate to what I am doing is a bonus but I still think I would be doing it if they did not. The fact that nowadays I am a full time artist is a huge blessing as well. It is a privilege and I cherish it.

Contact: Steve Bonello, Art and Illustration