CO-MA’s latest exhibition titled Every Saint Has a Past and Every Sinner Has a Future is curated by Lily Agius, and is the artist’s second ever solo-exhibition, showing at Spazju Kreattiv until June 29th. Drawing inspiration from both Norse mythology and the rich traditions of Renaissance and Baroque art, this body of work features large-scale paintings executed in oil on canvas and wood, and conveys a very raw and realistically dark interpretation of each of the Seven Deadly Sins – Pride, Sloth, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Greed and Envy.
In a time where aesthetics often mask emptiness and digital perfection rules perception, CO-MA’s latest body of work tears through this glossed over illusion with visceral force. The artist, whose technical skill is as evident as their contempt for hollow beauty, presents a series of paintings that seduce at first glance and then steadily unravel into something rawer, angrier, and far more honest as onlookers progress from space to space.
The first painting representing ‘’Ego’’ is seductive. Royal, regal and poised, she sits and stares out from a throne adorned with peacock feathers, rendered in a rich chiaroscuro style reminiscent of Baroque portraiture. Yet the surface is vandalized—graffiti litters her backdrop like a series of battle scars defacing an otherwise ‘’royal portrait’’.
The adjacent exhibition wall shows a message sprayed onto the wall mocking the very notion of grandeur: “Oh mighty ego, how does it feel to be so impossibly perfect and superior to everyone else?” The tone is sarcastic and biting, an indictment not only of the subject but also of our culture’s obsession with self-image, dominance, and perfection. These spray painted messages, serve to echo the social commentary not of the condemnation of the human condition, but rather of the excavation of its complexities like a series of didactic murals.
Walking further, we enter even darker territory with CO-MA’s paintings taking an even more intimate turn in a piece focused solely on a pair of intertwined hands. One is aged and weathered. The other—slender, youthful, perhaps feminine, resting gently beneath it. The painting’s technical brilliance is once again matched by its emotional gravitas. Set once again against a backdrop of graffiti and gashes, the painting presents us with a brief moment of tenderness amid the chaos. A lustful, quiet rebellion.
One of the more striking exhibited paintings, is one of the largest and cinematic of the lot. A quasi-monochromatic tableau depicting an angry crowd in mid-scream, with contorted faces leaping towards the viewer in what can be described as nothing more than rage and anguish in their purest of forms, while a pale hand stretches out towards them possibly pleading for mercy begging them to stop. The tension is unbearable. It captures something visceral about the social unrest we seem to be surrounded by in this day and age. A frenzy of cut-throat, cancel culture and collective judgment as we stand not so far from the madding crowd.
In other spaces, mythological allusions seep into the frameless and sinful imagery. A nude woman lies entwined with a coiled serpent, her expression serene, even blissful. The serpent here is not simply a symbol of sin, but one of transformation, temptation, and envy. An envy that has the potential to consume until left breathless.
Satire then crashes through the classical reverie of imagery in the form of a grotesque reimagining of The Last Supper. Here, the disciples are replaced by pig-headed men in suits, feasting beneath graffiti that reads “MEAT,” “FORCED,” and “FREE ENTRY.” It’s a dark parody of indulgence, consumerism, and moral decay – a modern day socio-political tableau of gluttony.
The exhibition closes not with confrontation, but with surrender. A final painting depicting sloth shows a woman at rest in a wheat field, her expression somewhere between ecstasy and exhaustion. The palette is warm, the folds of fabric tenderly painted. There is no graffiti here. No scarring. Just the possibility of peace—earned, perhaps, through all the ruin that came before.
In a digital age obsessed with clean lines, smooth skin, and curated lives, CO-MA’s exhibition stands out from the crowd, bringing something else to this table of sinfully earthly delights: a mirror that has been cracked just enough to reflect the harsher and realer versions of the selves we sinfully suppress.
