The title of Jo Debono’s current exhibition Anema e Core is a reference to a song by Roberto Murolo, a major protagonist of last century’s Neapolitan music scene. Anema e Core can be translated from the Neapolitan dialect to ‘soul and heart’.

Debono, who has retired from a career spanning almost 60 years in audiovisual engineering, says that he has returned to his first love – painting − although he had spent seven years when he was younger studying music.

The spirit of George Fenech (1926-2011), the Mellieħa artist who so lovingly captured the life and soul of that once dreamy village, lurks in the art of Debono. That serenity that imbues the landscapes of Fenech can be found in Debono’s similarly themed paintings.

Debono considers both Fenech and sculptor Ġanni Bonnici (1932-2019) as his mentors; the memory of their teachings is many times rekindled by Debono.

“Now it’s all coming back, originating from the heart and the soul,” Debono observes.

Nisa fl-Għalqa

“Although the starting point when I’m painting isn’t Fenech, his techniques resurface subliminally. To counter this, I even force myself to use different colours than his and employ alternative methods in technique. Fenech’s greatness is perhaps in my soul.”

The locations portrayed in Debono’s paintings are different to Fenech’s which, in the latter’s case, centred around Mellieħa and its environs, capturing the village’s different moods and nuances along a stretch of years.

Fenech worked en plein air, essentially translating on canvas what he was effectively experiencing, meteorological conditions, different seasons and all.

Debono sometimes refers to his own childhood memories, referring to the various villages he visited as a boy while accompanying his father who went on hunting expeditions in a pristine countryside.

One finds more than a hint of romanticism and nostalgia across Debono’s oeuvre. Nisa fl-Għalqa is perhaps a snapshot, a souvenir, from a time that is no more when the land was tilled by all family members. 

Andross

“I am in love with farmhouses and the vernacular,” the artist remarks.

Ir-Raħal ta’ Fuq and L-Imġarr demonstrate this fondness for the typical Maltese architecture of yesteryear and its geometricity as it clustered around the dominating church. The cubist compositions suggest Esprit Barthet, besides Paul Cézanne. Debono mentions these two artists, together with Anton Inglott, Emvin Cremona and the French impressionists as artists after his own heart.

Externalising pain

Anema e Core is also an externalisation of pain to present circumstances. “Certainly, Anime e Core is the feeling of pain at what is happening around us,” the artist continues.

One cannot but compare and contrast the fate that has befallen our country with the care and attention to natural beauty, the core of other European countries’ philosophy. Referring to his painting Andross, he claims that this Greek island reminds him of what Gozo looked like 50 or 60 years ago, when it was really the island where time stood still.

Certainly, 'Anime e Core' is the feeling of pain at what is happening around us

The eloquent simplicity in the composition, the ellipses formed by the umbrella and its corresponding shadow, the rectangular blue benches leading the perspective towards the brilliant blues and greens of the sea and the glaringly azure immense sky where the day seems to stretch forever reflect the internal peace that he encounters when he visits a beach where one can enjoy the sea breeze, the clear waters without the multitudes that nowadays crowd our islands’ sandy beaches coupled with the irritation of the cumbersome beach concessions.

We have lost the comfort of solitude, the rustling of the cool, salty breeze in one’s hair, the redeeming quiet that balances out all the cacophony and chaos, sadly, which has become woven in the fabric of this country’s existence.

“Andross is an unspoilt place that I visit almost every year. It is very peaceful, clean, has little traffic and good tavern food,” Debono says.

Il-Festa tar-Raħal

He admits that he paints practically every day “to immerse myself in the time and place I like best. I do not copy what is in front of me but try to create the atmosphere I feel around me; even in the studio still life paintings, I try to infuse some sort of character”.

In his novel Tropic of Cancer, American novelist Henry Miller points out: “I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”

We need to be with nature; with old and genuine traditions such as the old village festas as portrayed in the painting Il-Festa tar-Raħal, harking back to the time before the onset of the excessive bad taste, the drink fests and the endless fireworks; we crave to feel safe amid the untainted vernacular architecture, without the towering abominations that have supplanted a hefty percentage of it.

Debono’s Anema e Core is a gentle entreaty to search for a safe place that contemporary madness has concealed, even if we must summon it, as he does, from deep within the heart and soul.

Anema e Core, hosted at Malta Chamber of Commerce, Republic Street, Valletta, is on until April 6. Visit the event’s Facebook page for opening hours and more information.