Fragments, a new a solo art exhibition by Mariah Borg at Spazju Kreattiv, is a poignant exploration of emotional landscapes common to us all.

Borg dismantles the notion of healing as a linear path and instead presents it as a tapestry of experiences woven with both setbacks and breakthroughs. Healing is a positive subject matter, she explains, something that everyone goes through and can relate to.

Curated by Raphael Vella, it’s an immersive, multi-sensory show with large-scale paintings and modern digital animation of movements on screen.

Through her painting and installations, Borg maps the changes in both mind and body, and the non-linear process of healing from adversity, inviting visitors to consider how going through difficult times affects both body and mind, explaining that mental challenges can induce bodily contortions such as the foetal position.

Artist Mariah Borg

“The mind and body have always been central to my art,” Borg says.

“I use the body to express physicality, beauty, and vulnerability, while the mind represents thoughts, emotions, and consciousness. This duality allows for deep reflections on existence, self-perception, and the connection between physical and psychological states. I enjoy capturing the essence of human nature and invite viewers to engage with themes of life, mortality, and personal expression.”

Primarily from a philosophical perspective, the artist embraces both personal experiences and universal themes of resilience, and is interested in the way we overcome difficult times and how we recover afterwards. This positive growth is reflected through more open depictions of the human frame.

The exhibition’s narrative begins with large-scale suspended paintings which, tall and bold, show human figures as curious colourful characters which appear to resonate on multiple sensory levels.

With instinctive loose brushstrokes in an optimistic palette of dark red-pink, warm sunshine yellow, an invigorating sea blue and a calming grass green, her figures are strong yet soft.

Another work on display.

It’s a contradiction that seems the perfect match for the dynamic interplay of vulnerability and strength she wishes to portray, and her nuanced representation of those ‘in-between moments’ between realisation and action in a complex and uncertain world.

I hope that the exhibition will evoke individual responses in the visitors

Embodying key moments in a fractured yet transformative journey of self-discovery, the figures appear to reach out to viewers and mirror their own experiences of struggle and growth.

Partially abstracted, these visceral nudes are positioned in conversation with motion pictures in a cube installation, the interplay of animated and static elements designed to evoke indistinct memories.

As the work shifts between abstraction and lucidity, floating fabric mirrors the mind’s erratic process of recollection – distorting and reconstructing the past in fragments that are at once familiar and elusive.

The work shifts between abstraction and lucidity.

“I hope that the exhibition will evoke individual responses in the visitors, whether it is pain, sadness, happiness or excitement. For me, the point of art is to be able to explore and release the feelings within you,” she muses.

As the show continues, the large-scale works give way to more intimate imagery that Borg intends to create a contemplative rhythm: slows your pace to allow for a closer inspection of these dissections of fragmented realities.

Alongside, beneath the visitors’ feet, a poem plays out across the floor: the luscious lyrics whisper of soft winds brushing off the soul and a quiet thickening unfurling within, of battle scars and bravery, and sweet fruit ripened through the seasons:

“You’ve grown from the seed you were planted in,

Roots deep in uncertain soil,

Stretching upward with fierce resolve,

Toward skies that once seemed unreachable.

And what remains now,

After the winds, the rains, the fragments of what broke you –

Courage.”

Fragments runs until March 30 at Spazju Kreattiv (Space B).