Form without Shape
Laetitia Bonnici's interest in art comes naturally; she was powerfully influenced by the portraits her father painted, but it was not until after years of traveling around the world, marrying, and raising three children, that she turned anew to her passion for art. In the Grasse atelier of Professor Georges Bard, she learned the power of understatement and suggestion - a wrinkle, a fold, a whisper - instead of a detailed representation of form. " Too much detail can distract the viewer, " says Ms Bonnici. "Suggesting features allows the viewer to resonate with his own experience, to reflect his mood". Under the guidance of American artist Leo Buzkin, Ms Bonnici refined her appreciation of color and learned to draw upon her inner passions to paint rapidly and forcefully, her hands the instruments of her heart and spirit." I become another person, " says the soft-spoken painter, "violent and passionate. When I work, I feel another force erupts from within me". The molten power of her sculptures and paintings reflects that energy. While exhibiting in dozens of expositions over the past eighteen years, Ms Bonnici has continued to refine her technique, working intermittently over the past several years in the St. Paul de Vence studio of Franta, the internationally respected painter whose work hangs in museums from New York to Tokyo and throughout Europe. She also mentors a small colony of young artists in her own atelier in the south of France. "All of my experience, all of my life is focused in my art," she says. "Through it I can express what it is to be an artist - and a woman." Laetitia Bonnici's work speaks for itself, with the resounding echoes of a passionate soul.
Craig Lancto, The Washington Times