In a revealing interview to the New York Times Style Magazine, Reggie Burrows Hodges recounts his arrival in Malta in 2024, to discover how Caravaggio’s legacy and life on the island he was living in exile, were expressed in the painting.
“I was also drawn to his contrasting use of light and dark. I said to myself, ‘This is what Caravaggio made when he was here. What are you going to do?’ It was daunting. Later I returned to the piece not with the idea of remaking it but of paying homage to Caravaggio [while depicting] circumstances that felt true to me. My work Mamajamma”(2024) has some echoes of The Beheading: there’s blood on the surface of the pool, and I bring in the maiden who’s holding the chalice. It’s also the biggest painting I’ve made to date.”
A work of his own that he’s excited about is Labor: Limoncello (2025), inspired by two weeks of unbelievable Sahara winds blowing murky dust across the Mediterranean and into Malta.
“You were moving through a haze, fighting through it, and the sand and dust caught in those winds led to a particular quality of light being cast across the town. The dust reduces air quality but also enriches the ecosystem with minerals like iron, and it magnifies the intensity of the sunsets. An undercurrent that runs through all of my work is the idea that gritty, less visible [forces] are integral to the creation and maintenance of something beautiful.”
