There are instances in the history of world art when two or more artists joined forces, armed with canvases, pigments and brushes, and embarked on an expedition, sur le motif much at heart for Paul Cézanne, to most honestly capture the nuances, the flavours and the scents of natural landscapes and townscapes.

The impressionists pioneered the en-plein-air approach; development in pigments production did not necessitate their alchemical preparation in the artists’ studios. Pigments could be carried around without the danger of atmospheric conditions drying them out and thus rendering them quite useless.

Claude Monet and Pierre August Renoir, two major impressionists, often worked side by side, sharing anecdotes, life stories and perspectives, thus enriching each other’s oeuvres as they went along. One can compare and contrast when similarly themed works by the two artists are brought adjacent to each other in celebratory exhibitions. Indeed, this provides a priceless viewpoint of the artistic dialogue that happened almost 150 years ago at the birth of modernism.

Debbie Bonello and Andrew Borg, contemporary protagonists of the resurgence of the Maltese landscape genre, similarly collaborate, at times accompanied by other colleagues, on expeditions to various localities, armed with the tools of the trade. Thus, this enterprising group of artists manages to capture the very essence of the landscape of the Maltese archipelago. Each of them speaks different but related languages, through painterly approach and attitude to composition.

Borg favours a square format, dividing pictorial space horizontally in cross section, rather in a similar way to American minimalist Mark Rothko. At other times, the style of Norwegian artist and playwright August Strindberg is intimated − heaven dark and ominous, heavily tumbling down and menacing to smother everything earthbound in its wake.

One would almost expect this dissection, this gash to weep and release earth, water, wind and fire as pure elements that the artist recombines in quasi-abstract representations that fleetingly hint at geographical locations. When Borg zooms in, in a hyperrealist way, the result is disconcertingly almost abstract.

Bonello generally goes for a rectangular format, a wide-angled view at times that pulls one into the raw power of nature and its rapidly changing humours. In other instances, the composition reaches vertically and heavenward, chronicling the relationship between elements of earth, sea and sky.

The title of the exhibition, Whereabouts, further suggests this ambiguity of generalised geographical location. It hints at an investigation, at an analysis of the landscape, by reducing it to its empirical state of form and colour and recombining it into a more identifiable alternative as suggested by the title of the individual works.

This exhibition is about the beauty in ‘desolation’ and solitude

Sky, terrain, trees and water are the four basic elements in the crucible of a landscape artist. Other ingredients may be added to the recipe to enhance and spice the anecdotal aspect of the artwork or to approximate a context and a geographical location. Just like American artist Andrew Wyeth, Bonello and Borg are “more interested in the mood of a thing than the truth of a thing”. 

For this exhibition, the two artists have narrowed their search, focusing on the Gozitan landscape and its fundamentals, its inherent geology and stratigraphy. They represent it via new narratives, pertinent to two different artistic views; it’s not a question of one voice overwhelming the other, rather they complement one another.

Whereabouts is also about a merger, a flow, a discourse that two artists comfortably and symbiotically embark upon. Extending the analogy to literature, one can say that this exhibition is an example of ‘collaborative fiction’ through the medium of art instead of words.

Human enterprise does not factor in the two Maltese artist’s artistic equation of natural beauty – our sister island has recently been plundered of some of its charms and raped by the most unscrupulous of land speculators. This exhibition is about the beauty in ‘desolation’ and solitude.

Charlene Vella, in her essay for the exhibition catalogue, insightfully points out: “Gozo has never looked so alluring as an island hideaway captured as paintings that are far from the mainstream.”

The prosaic mainstream painfully reminds us of the dystopian scenario of ruined Gozitan villagescapes and skylines. Whereabouts is a poetic reminder that, notwithstanding all, the unique spirit of Gozo still exists, concealed amid its lore and legend, its dramatic cliffs and rolling garigue, that still provide the backdrop for the love story that consumed the mythological hero Ulysses and his beautiful nymph Calypso.

Whereabouts, hosted by Il-Ħaġar Museum of Victoria, is part of the Victoria International Arts Festival and runs until July 25. Opening hours are daily between 9am and 5pm. Entrance is free.