Selina Scerri
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Multimedia Artist & Researcher

Selina Scerri

I’m a Maltese multimedia artist, painter, and researcher working across contemporary painting, AI-assisted filmmaking, digital illustration, and immersive installation. Magic realism is central to my practice. I start with familiar places and everyday situations, then use an impossible event to change how we see them. A Valletta monument becomes a luminous teddy bear, an astronaut lands on a Maltese rooftop, and a pink cat grows large enough to sleep beside.

I am Artistic Director of the Creative Science and Arts Institute (CSAI) and Lead Researcher on ADHAPT, an 18-month research project funded by Xjenza Malta through the Research Excellence Programme. My work with AI spans cinematic storytelling and research into how voice and images might support emotional regulation in adults with ADHD.

I hold a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London, and an MA in Illustration from Falmouth University. I am represented by Christine X Art Gallery in Sliema, Malta.

AI Films

Nadukka | From original drawings to AI-assisted short films

Nadukka is an AI-assisted short-film series developed from original drawings by Maltese multimedia artist Selina Scerri. The series brings two of her characters into moving image: Nadukka, an astronaut girl, and Anxy, her pink cat. The films use Maltese rooftops, streets, and public squares as settings for magic realism. A small gesture can change the scale of a character or transform an entire landmark.

Anxy

AI-assisted short film · 20 seconds · Valletta, Malta

Based on original drawings by Selina Scerri, Anxy follows Nadukka as she descends onto a rooftop overlooking Valletta with her pink cat in her arms. The camera stays fixed as Anxy grows to an enormous size and Nadukka curls up beside him under a starry sky. The steady frame lets the change in scale unfold inside a quiet scene.

Snake Chase

AI-assisted short film · 44 seconds · Tarxien, Malta

Selina Scerri brings characters from her original drawings into an action sequence set in Tarxien. Nadukka and Anxy race through the village as its church breaks apart into glowing pixel cubes. A cyborg and a neon pixel serpent join the chase, carrying the same visual motif from the architecture into the action.

Bubbles

AI-assisted short film · 37 seconds · Vertical 9:16 · Valletta, Malta

Developed from Selina Scerri’s original drawings, Bubbles begins in Queen Victoria Square. Nadukka activates her wristwatch and transforms the Queen Victoria monument into a luminous teddy bear. She and Anxy race through Valletta’s arcades as two oversized spheres in electric fuchsia and acid lime ricochet off the limestone and break parts of the arcade into glowing pixel cubes.

Kraken | AI-assisted short films set in Malta and Gozo

Kraken is a three-film series by Selina Scerri that stages fictional encounters with giant sea creatures at recognisable coastal landmarks. Popeye is set at Popeye Village in Anchor Bay, Azure Window at Dwejra in Gozo, and Valletta against the capital’s waterfront and skyline.

Popeye

AI-assisted short film · 30 seconds · Popeye Village, Anchor Bay, Malta

A giant kraken appears in the waters of Anchor Bay beside the colourful waterfront buildings of Popeye Village. The small houses and sheltered bay establish the creature’s scale and turn a familiar Maltese film location into the setting for a sea-monster encounter.

Azure Window

AI-assisted short film · 28 seconds · Dwejra, Gozo, Malta

Selina Scerri sets this fictional kraken encounter at the Azure Window in Dwejra. The silhouette of the limestone arch anchors the scene in Gozo and gives the imagined event a recognisable coastal setting.

Valletta

AI-assisted short film · 30 seconds · Valletta, Malta

Selina Scerri stages a kraken encounter against the waterfront of Malta’s capital. Valletta’s skyline gives the creature a sense of scale as the film turns a familiar coastal view into a scene of maritime fantasy.

AI Love

Love

AI-assisted short film · 55 seconds · Character created with Midjourney

Love reintroduces a character Selina Scerri created with Midjourney, whom she affectionately calls her “AI boyfriend” on her social media. In this short film, AI-assisted animation brings him into moving image.

AI Illustration

Don’t Cry Baby

AI-assisted animated illustration · 1 minute · Vertical 9:16

Don’t Cry Baby brings a character from Selina Scerri’s original comics to life through AI-assisted animation. The film preserves the exact original drawing, carrying its linework, proportions, and character design into a vertical moving-image format.

Nuclear

AI-assisted animated illustration · 30 seconds · Vertical 9:16

Nuclear is based on a two-page A4 illustrated story that Selina Scerri painted several years ago. AI-assisted animation reimagines the story for the vertical screen, bringing her painted pages into motion and filling the gaps the two pages had left to the imagination.

Halloween Kitty

AI-assisted animated illustration · 5-second loop

Halloween Kitty animates a cat character from comics Selina Scerri created several years ago. AI-assisted animation adds a repeating movement while preserving the exact original drawing and the cat’s original lines and proportions.

Research

ADHAPT | AI, art, and emotional regulation in adult ADHD

Research project · Creative Science and Arts Institute · February 2026 onward

ADHAPT is an 18-month research project led by Selina Scerri at the Creative Science and Arts Institute (CSAI). It investigates how voice and images might inform the design of AI-assisted tools for emotional regulation in adults with ADHD. The project brings together artistic practice, visual communication, and affective computing, the study of how computational systems work with signals related to emotion.

Artistic Director, CSAI

2023–present

Selina Scerri directs interdisciplinary projects at the Creative Science and Arts Institute (CSAI), connecting visual art, science, technology, and public engagement through installations, exhibitions, talks, and workshops.

Projects

Tomorrow’s Blossoms

Immersive AI art installation and 360° fulldome film · 2021–2024 · Malta

Film · 10 minutes · Plays as one continuous film Jump to part:

Tomorrow’s Blossoms is an immersive art project co-created by multimedia artist Selina Scerri and AI researcher Dr. Angelo Dalli. It asks how the emotions involved in making art can be translated into moving images. Scerri’s analogue and digital paintings formed part of a workflow that used image datasets, generative adversarial networks (GANs), and neural morphing to create sequences for a planetarium dome.

Andrea Bocelli | Con te partirò

Concert video · Creative Science and Arts Institute · Italy, 2025

The Creative Science and Arts Institute (CSAI) created a concert video to accompany Andrea Bocelli’s 2025 performance of Con te partirò in Italy.

Onde di luce · Concert video · 2 minutes 56 seconds · Plays as one continuous video Jump to part:

Efflorescence

Solo painting exhibition · 111 Art Gallery · Ta’ Xbiex, Malta · 2020

In Efflorescence, Selina Scerri uses the floral still life to explore colour and light. Dahlias and peonies appear alongside grapes, butterflies, and bands of rainbow light. The paintings begin with familiar arrangements of flowers and fruit, then introduce details that shift them towards magic realism.

From the Efflorescence collection, 2020 · 7 works · Select a painting to see it full size.

Painting of white flowers in a blue vase on a blue ground Painting of pink, orange and yellow dahlias in a vase with grapes Painting of blue and white dahlias in a vase with grapes, a rainbow light and butterflies Painting of white peonies in a pale blue vase on a deep blue ground Painting of a woman in a space helmet and pink fur coat smelling red flowers Painting of a woman in a space helmet seen from behind, with butterflies on her back, among flowers and stars Painting of a reclining woman in a sheer dress among flowers and butterflies

Colour in Valletta

Site-specific public art installation · St. Lucia Street (Triq Santa Luċija), Valletta · 2018 · Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture

Colour in Valletta was a site-specific public art installation commissioned by the Embassy Shopping Complex and Cinemas to celebrate Valletta 2018, European Capital of Culture. Designed and produced by Selina Scerri, it was suspended over St. Lucia Street in Malta’s UNESCO World Heritage capital: a canopy about 23 metres long, made of transparent, hand-dyed fabric strips, using over 250 metres of spray-painted fabric in total. The overlapping layers caught the Mediterranean sunlight and cast shifting, coloured shadows on the street and stairs below.

Scerri describes Colour in Valletta as a turning point in her practice. In a 2020 interview with Wham, she said that from then on her colours became “brighter and at the same time more controlled”, a palette that carries into her later AI-assisted work, including the neural morphing used in Tomorrow’s Blossoms.

Colour in Valletta, 2018: layers of transparent hand-dyed fabric strips in blue, violet, pink, orange and green suspended over St. Lucia Street, lit from above
Photograph · The hand-dyed fabric canopy over St. Lucia Street, Valletta, 2018

Solo exhibitions

2024Tomorrow's Blossoms — Christine X Gallery, Sliema, Malta
2024Tomorrow's Blossoms — Esplora Interactive Science Centre, Kalkara, Malta
2020Efflorescence — 111 Art Gallery, Ta' Xbiex, Malta
2015When Girls Undress — Ritz Arcades, Valletta, Malta
2014Charms — Christine X Gallery, Sliema, Malta
2013Imagination — Christine X Gallery, Valletta, Malta
2012Quixotic — Lily Agius Gallery, Sliema, Malta
2011Solo Works: Selina Scerri — Christine X Gallery, Malta
2008Bellezze Perdute — Palazzo Merighi, Jesi, Italy
2007Plastic London Fantastic — Art Via, Fano, Italy

Public art & commissions

2026Mural — Veċċja restaurant, St Paul's Bay, Malta
2023Murals and design — Toro Toro, Mercury Towers, St Julian's, Malta
2023Perfume packaging design — Franks Perfumery
2022Artwork for a women's rights campaign — Maltese television
2021Outdoor installation — Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, Malta
2019Book cover illustration — No Exit, translated by Kevin Saliba
2018 – 2019Colour in Valletta, public art installation — Embassy Shopping Complex, St. Lucia Street, Valletta, Malta
2011Wine label series — Marsovin Winery

Education & awards

2026 Xjenza Malta, Research Excellence Programme — ADHAPT 2026 Certificate in EU Funding, Knights College 2024 Community Development and Innovation Scheme — CSAI Foundation 2022 MA Illustration, Falmouth University 2021 Arts Council Malta grant — Tomorrow's Blossoms 2012 – 2022 Art Teacher, Visual Arts, Malta Education Department 2007 BA Fine Arts, Central Saint Martins 2003 Janatha Stubbs Foundation Scholarship

Contact

selina.scerri@csai.io
Instagram @selinascerriYouTube [channel link]

Represented by Christine X Gallery
17 Tigné Street, Sliema, Malta