Christopher Chetcuti

Creation started from a single unknowable moment that is still a mystery to us all. In the Book of Genesis, creation is formed over seven days. In cosmology, it is understood to originate from a single point—the Big Bang.

These ideas became central to a sculpture I was commissioned to produce for the tabernacle doors in my hometown church. The formal constraints were clearly defined: a square divided into four by a cross, with a centre from which a ripple would emanate. Compositionally, there was little room for deviation. The structure, like the laws of nature, was fixed.

Within that limitation, I wanted to find meaning, and I turned to the centre.

The centre operates as both a physical and conceptual origin. It is the point from which form emerges, expands, transforms, and solidifies into being. Rather than treating the ripple as a purely decorative element, I approached it as a moment of expansion—an echo of both cosmological and theological beginnings.

I chose to represent the scale of the universe in a reduced, human dimension. I resolved the form into seven concentric circles, translating an immeasurable process into a finite, readable structure.

While working, I kept thinking of this singularity as a spark. It is something I recognise each time I begin a sculpture, a drawing, or a text—the moment where form first appears as possibility. These moments feel like a kind of origin, though their source remains uncertain.

With this work, I do not attempt to describe creation in literal terms. Instead, I suggest it—through repetition, rhythm, and containment. The way an idea emerges, expands, and is shaped by experience.

Creation is still happening, every moment, in thought.

This sculpture was part of a project titled RISEN, entrusted to Perit Ruben Paul Borg, and Keith Galea Design.