Isabelle Borg

Vicki Ann Cremona writes:

When I left my dearest friend, Isabelle Borg, two mornings ago, I carried away with me the image of a happy person. In spite of the terminal illness that had cruelly made her waste away, Isabelle still found the energy to radiate her wonderful, mischievous smile and the laugh in her beautiful eyes. I came away thinking of my dearest friend’s love for life, and the way she always lived it intensely and to the full, savouring every moment, and sharing her boundless energy and sense of fun with those who were close to her.

The greatest thing I admired about Isabelle’s talent and personality was her boldness. As a painter, her stunningly bold style made her one of Malta’s greatest successful contemporary artists, as was clearly manifested in the retrospective of her works held a few years ago at the Fine Arts Museum. Isabelle’s paintings were generally very striking, with daring bold colours and vigorous brushstrokes. She had an eye for uncommon subjects, and a very particular way of observing people and places which emerged clearly in her paintings and portraits. Her concern was not with “likeness” or “reproduction”, rather, she transmitted her own very daring and particular perception of her subjects, which put her in a class of her very own.

Isabelle’s boldness, highly evident in her art, was characteristic of her whole personality. Isabelle was never indifferent to injustice, and was fearless in making her voice clearly heard. She had founded Moviment Mara Maltija in the late 1980s, to speak out against injustice, particularly in the case of battered women. She fought, practically up to her deathbed, against the relentless building developments in Malta, particularly in Floriana, where she lived.

Isabelle tried to transmit this boldness also in her teaching. She taught fine art and history of art both at Junior College and at University. She allowed university students to use her own studio when art facilities were non-existent on university premises. She always insisted on observing things from life, and would take students on landscape painting even outside lecturing hours. She was the first person to organise regular exhibitions of students’ work, which she put up almost single-handedly. Her active and intense participation at talks and seminars – as well as the ones she gave – could never pass unnoticed.

However, I will mostly remember Isabelle for her warmth, her wonderful sense of fun, and her empathy. I remember talking deeply about the meaning of life, in the last months of her devastating illness, which was robbing life away from her. She told me that for her, the most important thing in the world was love, love and the privilege to share it. She shared much love with her close friends, her dear father, and with her partner, Graham Cooper, who dedicated himself so devotedly to her during her horrible illness.

I feel very privileged to have had Isabelle as an important part of my life for many years, and I carry the memories of our special bond as the only way to overcome the emptiness her loss has left in it.