Art has always represented hope for watercolourist John Martin Borg, whose paintings will be used on the leaflets containing the readings for Sunday's papal Mass at the Granaries in Floriana.
As a child, his time spent painting offered him hope during difficult school days when his undiagnosed dyslexia led him to feel sidelined.
Now, as an adult, the renowned watercolourist sees hope as being an underlying message in art that allows people to enter a hidden realm of artists' interpretations and perceptions of the spiritual and material world.
"If I had to have a mission in life, I would want it to be that of creating hope... This may be because of my dyslexia as I had a difficult time with my schooling," he said.
Mr Borg only found out he was dyslexic about two years ago when a specialist in the condition went to his house to buy one of his paintings. He started suspecting it sometime before, when his daughter, a facilitator, spoke about dyslexia and he recognised traits in his childhood-self. "My works always had an ethereal and atmospheric feel to them... Now I realise that in some of my paintings I eliminated aspects so the scene became a dream world. What I was painting was the dream world I looked for as a child... a space where I could breathe and not have to be at school.
"The best example I can give is, imagine you're a child and someone is holding your head under water. Those moments, when I came up to breathe, were the moments when I used to be allowed to paint or was out in the countryside - when I could be myself," he said.
At school he struggled with reading and writing which made English one of the hardest subjects. But, with enough effort, he managed to learn how to cope, got into university and graduated in pharmacy.
Mr Borg thanks his university professor for becoming the artist he is today. The professor taught him university was not a place where people went just to find a job. It was about learning to think professionally. This instilled in him an academic approach towards art and he studied watercolours alone, seeking inspiration from other artists.
He worked in the pharmacy field, which he had a passion for, until seven years ago when he decided to dedicate all his time to art.
Apart from painting scenes on location, Mr Borg has a range of spiritual works.
"Working on location is totally different from creating a spiritual work. I think my religious works might be more artistic. On location you go out, feel the atmosphere, look around and something attracts you.
"The artist then takes it in, passes it through his own emotions and retransmits it. In spiritual works, the artist is not stimulated but has to look into himself," Mr Borg said.
His religious works include paintings inspired by the theology of St Paul who believed in the concept that God had a plan for salvation.
Since Pope Benedict XVI is coming to Malta to mark the 1,950th anniversary of the shipwreck of St Paul in Malta, Mr Borg's works have been picked for the Mass-reading leaflet. Six of his works will also be printed in limited edition and given to the Pope's entourage.
Last November Mr Borg was invited by the Vatican to an event at the Sistine Chapel. Artists from around the world gathered there to discuss art as the Church sought to strengthen the bond with artists of different religions and genres.