László Gábor Belicza

Postcards from the sea: Maltese Spring

In Malta, you must go. I read this quote twenty-five years ago, and ever since then, this sentence comes to my mind whenever I think of the tiny island or visit it. László Gábor Belicza\'s pictures also evoke the atmosphere of wandering around seemingly aimlessly, capturing small everyday scenes and intimate moments from the lives of the locals, which are rarely seen in clichéd tourist programs. In Malta, you really have to go: walk past cactus fences on top of steep cliffs, smell the salty sea in the breeze, bargain at dawn in the noisy fish market, count the eyes painted on fishing boats to ward off evil spirits, admire the colourful balconies of yellowish limestone houses that evoke the Arab world, and of course get caught up in the religious procession of a small community. The Maltese are deeply Catholic, with a church for every day (there are 365 of them), their houses named after their patron saints and decorated with statues of the Virgin Mary or Jesus. But even with their almost fanatical religiosity, the people are open minded, and the society is diverse - perhaps because of their troubled history. Indeed, the island in the middle of the Mediterranean has been wanted by practically everyone who has passed through, from the Phoenicians to the French, the British and, of course, the benevolent Johannine knights. The mixture is reflected in their food, their language, their facial features and their habits. The houses are unfinished, there\'s a constant flow of people coming and going, a Middle Eastern feel to the bustle - yet there\'s an inexplicable peace about this Mediterranean effervescence. This is also reflected in this spring photo diary from Malta: alongside randomness and laid-back messiness, there is also harmony with nature, pleasant colours, ordinary people, holidays, and Sundays. The photographer set out on the island, which is still particularly calm in March and April, walking, contemplating, wondering - living and documenting the perfectly normal, unpretentious life of the Maltese people, without meaningless pretentiousness or self-indulgence. Ilda G. Tóth Forbes

Photographer

I planned to become a painter, but at the university entrance exam they said, „László, you can’t draw
at all.” Since my portfolio folder contained 3 prints by complete coincidence, I was offered to major in photography. That’s how photography found me. I later graduated in Photography
and Design at the University of Kaposvár and published my works for the first time in 2016. The first
one was my photo essay (Whole 2012-2016) about a tragedy within a family, a series that was selected
as one of the 10 most outstanding photo projects by Fotoroom that year. The personal themes have
stayed with me, I can best express myself in diary-like photo essays. After graduating from university, I worked for many years as a portrait photographer, and since 2019 I have been teaching photography
and working on my own series with national grants National Cultural
Fund for Photography, Hungarian Academy of Arts grant. My works are currently in the collections
of the Rippl-Rónai Museum, the Kunsthalle, the Herman Ottó Museum, and the Petőfi Literary Museum.

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