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| THE PAINTINGS OF ISABELLE BORG
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"I have known the paintings of Isabelle Borg for the last twenty years since her appearance on the Maltese scene. Her "Lovers in the Bull" is a landmark in twentieth century Maltese art. Only one in a series, it follows in the steps of previous Maltese painters who had derived much inspiration from the images of Malta's prehistoric past. Originating in a Tarxien temple, the elegant profile of a long-horned ox also incorporates in its belly the overlaid outlines of male and female in union. These two combined motifs have been further heightened by the passionate colours and vigorous brushstrokes of continental New Expressionism and the Transavanguardia which flourished when Isabelle Borg stayed in Berlin between 1984 and 1987, while yearning for her cultural roots...
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Her stay in Berlin widened her perspectives, bringing her into closer contact with important developments in European art. Her deceptively bleak "Berlin drawings" are executed in ink on East German toilet paper. These generally dark drawings nonetheless contain several undertones of colour that was to erupt in later phases of art.
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Portraiture in Malta is still unduly shackled by capturing, or improving, the likeness (and vanity) of the sitter. It is for this reason that Isabelle Borg's influential exhibition of portraits in 1989 came practically as a breakthrough in Maltese art. They undoubtedly say as much about the artist as the sitters, while remaining provocative and enigmatic.
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When I inaugurated a collection of views of the Grand Harbour in 1992, I remember stressing that she does not treat her subject merely form the viewpoint of its aesthetic possibilities, the many historical undertones in the Harbour's past are never obviously stated by the artist in some historicist evocation. They are, all the same, at the very core of her Realist treatment of numerous works on this subject...
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One particular feature has featured repeatedly in Isabelle Borg's painterly production. A unique and evocative underground alcove in her studio is frequently the setting for figures in isolation. Its symbolic connotations are clearly irresistible to an artist whose first major paintings were intrinsically linked to prehistoric caverns.
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In the landscapes of Isabelle Borg broad sweeps of countryside and buildings sometimes include figures conversing, at rest or in motion frequently in the environs of the Harbour. Their postures are ambiguous, while their intentions are not always clear. The expressions of their faces reveal a multiplicity of emotions. She crams her sketchbooks with quick observations that are later transformed in the studio.
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Surprisingly (her abstracts) were first begun alongside the Bull series, while coming into their own years later they convincingly present classically well-thought-out areas of colour in the most basic of forms. The artist is confident enough to sense that colour, in the right hue and proportion, speaks with a resounding voice...
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Following a number of visits to Italy, recorded in some serene Florentine garden paintings, Borg has visited Ireland often during these last few years. The results are revealing. Malta's cluttered and compressed landscape gives way to far broader sweeps of surcharged colour betraying the painter's sheer awe and joy in the presence of the immensity of nature."
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Dennis Vella M.A.,
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From the brochure of the exhibition PAINTINGS OF THE LAST EIGHTEEN YEARS; National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta (Dec. 2002); selected and curated by Dennis Vella.
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