Mixed Media on Wood
140 x 120 cm
The Fallen Angel Trilogy is a deeply personal and multi-layered homage to the late Maltese artist Mark Mallia (1965–2024), created by Farrell in the year following his passing. Spanning three large-scale mixed media works on wood, the series is a visual elegy to a complex creative force; an artist who believed he was a fallen angel, wrestling with beauty, pain, rebellion, and love.
Each work features various authentic objects of significance, used by Farrell as a way of embalming Mallia for his new journey. At the heart of each piece is one of Mark’s own jackets, transformed into a relic of memory and myth through meticulous embroidery, symbolic artefacts, and shared creative history. Atop each work sits a different crown of thorns, the very ones used during Farrell’s Personal Jesus project, the first collaboration in which Mallia modelled for Farrell. Also prominent are three bouquets of roses he had gifted her.
Each work reflects a different emotional register; grief, strength, vulnerability, and spiritual contemplation, intertwining personal mementoes with sacred imagery and contemporary iconography.
Fallen Angel I
This work draws from intimate moments shared in the studio: cigarette butts from their ashtray, the Joker card Mark strongly identified with, and the crow tattoo, originally inked on his skin, now embroidered onto the jacket. Mark’s connection to the Joker was emblematic; he saw in the figure a rebellious spirit, defiant of societal norms, yet laden with emotional vulnerability and a deep yearning for connection.
Fallen Angel II
The second piece is the heaviest; marked by loss, but also by acts of devotion. Over the year, Farrell collected feathers she found at random; symbols, for many, of the presence of loved ones who have passed. Each feather was delicately incorporated into the work.
The black jacket returns, stronger this time, further steeped in memory. The embroidered sacred heart echoes the tattoo design that Farrell originally created and which Mallia later had inked into his skin. The darkness in this piece radiates both pain and reverence, strength and sorrow.
Fallen Angel III
The final work in the trilogy serves as both culmination and farewell. The jacket, once again Mallia’s, is now embroidered with Farrell’s Eye of God tattoo design, an image he later asked a friend to ink on his body, believing it gave him protection. Into the jacket are embroidered snippets of his catchphrases, preserved and stitched into permanence.
The crown used in the final scene of Personal Jesus appears here, solemn, regal, and resonant. Nearby lies the last bunch of roses Mark gave to Farrell; a symbol of beauty, love, and endings.
The entire work is framed with coins, many of which Farrell found throughout the past year. She recalls Mark’s amused curiosity the first time he saw her pick up a one-cent coin from the pavement. When she explained the “pennies from heaven” myth, he became intrigued. After his passing, every coin she found was attributed to him; small tokens of presence, quiet comforts from the beyond.
The Fallen Angel Trilogy is underpinned by a passage from the Book of Revelation, in which Archangel Michael battles the rebel angels. Through this lens, the works explore spiritual warfare, creative defiance, mortality, and the eternal dialogue between the material and the divine.
The series invites the viewer to consider the boundaries between art and relic, memory and myth. By combining personal mementoes, religious iconography, and symbolic gestures, these works serve as a collaborative requiem, part tribute, part invocation, for a beloved friend, a fallen angel, and an extraordinary artist.
The surface of each piece gives the illusion of being veiled in water, a sacred symbol associated with life, death, and rebirth, suggesting a soul’s journey from birth to the beyond. Ultimately, Fallen Angel is a profound meditation on the eternal struggle between light and shadow, between rebellion and redemption.
