Servant of Yahweh Is 33, by John Martin Borg.

The Maltese landscape is adorned by several beautiful sights and it has attracted artists both local and foreign and has inspired them to record it in their own individual way and in several media and formats.

Several renowned foreigners still come to Malta to immortalise even the most remote of places harboured by our shores. The Royal Watercolour Society has visited Malta before and will be returning this month.

For 10 days in October, the Auberge d’Italie in Valletta housed several landscapes executed by a number of Maltese artists, showcasing the Maltese islands. The charm of Gozo featured in many of the exhibits.

This exhibition was the very first of a series titled artiMalta, organised by the National Museum of Fine Arts. Artists were asked to apply to participate in this exhibition and a selection process brought the 18 exhibiting artists together for what was a pleasing exhibition of an eclectic group of works.

A good dose of charm was provided by Kenneth Zammit Tabona’s beautifully-framed watercolour and pen and ink paintings, with his colours becoming ever brighter and more evocative. Even brighter and bolder colours were used in Lawrence Pavia’s paintings which mainly focused on Gozo. Although recognisable as Maltese landmarks, these somehow remind me of fairy tales, an impression further reinforced by his acute use of the hard edge technique.

The aim of this series of exhibitions was to showcase a selection of works by Maltese artists in response to a pre-selected theme or topic

Anna Galea is experimenting with a loose, wet-on-wet technique in watercolour and landscape painting. John Martin Borg is further magnifying his oeuvre of Maltese watercolour views with a dry brush used in the foreground, and fluid agitated skies, and Mark Sagona, too, revisits his nocturnal landscapes.

As good as they may be, three drawings executed in ink on paper by Jimmy Grima were not recognisably Maltese. Victor Agius’s exhibit, Phusis, has already featured in another collective exhibition earlier this year.

Most memorable were Richard Saliba’s paintings and Robert Zahra’s 2009-2010 video installation.

Saliba’s acute use of light and shade, and occasional use of pastel colours, produces images that are powerful and evocative, and modern at the same time. This is particularly true of Mtaħleb 1 and Mtaħleb 2.

Zahra’s Red Rubbish: Interventions in the Landscape saw the artist film himself in the countryside where discarded objects were painted red to highlight them, in order for the public to reflect on this bad practice of getting rid of unwanted objects. All of this was recorded by videos and photo-graphy in order to create the installation.

Other media were also included in this exhibition: photography, collograph prints, mixed media and collage. Among these were works by Ryan Falzon, Sarah Mamo and Sabrina Calleja Jackson – all of whom are promising.

Aggressive brushwork differentiates Celia Borg Cardona’s two landscapes, with Blue Street being particularly interesting. The colour and strokes that make up this sombre alleyway beautifully complement the aura she chose to portray the quiet street. Similarly, vigorous brushstrokes inhabit Caroline Navarro’s two paintings with beautiful movement and a bright palette.

The Maltese landscape featured prominently in another October exhibition. John Martin Borg exhibited 44 paintings at the Palace in Valletta in aid of the Malta Community Chest Fund.

Silent Conversations showcased many of Borg’s other landscapes, with Winter’s morning – Country lane outside Għasri, Gozo – being the most memorable piece, together with images of San Anton Gardens.

But what stood out most were eight paintings that were not landscapes, among these two abstract and religious paintings. Among the latter was a study or sketch which revealed Borg’s thought process; Servant of Yahweh was given pride of place in the exhibition, and rightly so.

However, what was particularly noteworthy was Descent into Chaos III (2011), where a crucified Christ is enveloped by washes of light colour that swirl around him, further intensifying the drama. This is where Borg is at his raw best, artistically, and it is also where his spirituality is most evocative.