Twitch is no newcomer to controversial street art. The Maltese visual artist has toured around Europe, often leaving political statements in places like London for the locals to enjoy, with the ability to quickly get to the heart of a matter within the confines of a blank wall.

Now the graffiti artist is back with a new political mural, and it captures some of the main issues Malta’s faced over the last couple of years. But Twitch might have had a different reason for wanting to do the new mural at the Skate Park in Msida:

“I was tired of seeing Joseph’s face at the park and thought it was time to tackle a new subject while trying to keep it slightly less direct,” he says with a smile. 

Twitch wanted to criticise both Maltese political parties since the both of them try to “shove stuff under the carpet when it suits them”

That’s why he created ‘Under The Carpet’ – a mural of two vultures representing the “bigheads” who run Malta.

“Each vulture is wearing their own pair of boxing gloves over their sharp claws in their own representative colour, and each side of the political scale is diplomatically seated whilst holding an attack stance,” he says.

“The vulture wearing the red gloves represents the political figure with leftist views. It’s wearing a Panama hat since the mural is painted in Malta whilst the one on the right is wearing a gangster hat. In the background we can see the view of Malta’s capital city, Valletta with a new cross in the form of a euro symbol at the top of the church and various cranes on either side,” he continues.

But it’s what’s hidden under the carpet that you need to really look out for

“Hidden under the carpet drenched in blood from the left to right we can find the dead cow representing the death of the environment, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s bombed car, Pilatus Bank and Panama Air representing the Panama scandal, all being conveniently slowly shoved away from the public eye,” he said.

So far the feedback to the mural has been great

But Twitch said there were a few people who weren’t too pleased with it

“As usual some Labour die-hards didn’t get it – but that’s nothing new is it?”

What do you think of Twitch’s latest work?

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]