T he Lone Survivor is perhaps just another man with just another story. One of many whose life has been touched by tragedy. A series of six paintings tell his drama – portraits that look at a face and beyond. Debbie Caruana Dingli is exceptional in her skill of reaching into people’s souls, because of this innate capacity to capture their innermost feelings and presenting them on canvas as if she knew them from birth. Look at me, I am desperate. Look at me, I am happy. Look at me, this is my life. These people don’ say it in so many words. It is Debbie’s paintbrush which does it all for them.
It has been 10 years since she last exhibited at St James Cavalier with her celebrated collection of comic parodies Games People Play, that drew public attention not merely to her colours but also to her verve and insight into people’s characters. Debbie is now back at this great venue with a new collection. She returns wholeheartedly to her old love of painting people who take her fancy. If they excite her observatory skills, they are immortalised in paint.
Take the immigrants. 12 out of 47 paintings speak of human tragedies and lives adrift. The images are created courtesy of snapshots taken by professional photographer Chris Sant Fournier. Yet these images go beyond the snapshot reality which is merely documenting a news episode. It seems as if Debbie, perhaps thanks to feminine intuition, artistic flair or an innate ability to see through people, has brought these men, women and children alive and closer to the viewer. She lifts them out of anonymity and gives them her own colour as it were. We can read their minds, their thoughts, feel the chill in their bones and marvel at the way in which, with a few brushstrokes, Debbie manages to bring them to life on canvas.
A father and son portrait, four women and their children, the Hal Far immigrants’ camp, two policeman handing over a child, one of the several who lands here by mistake, misplaced and confused. These paintings speak of a reality that is more often than not merely relegated to the daily summer newsreels and summarily forgotten.
Leaving the series of the immigrants to one side, we touch down closer to home.
A group of nuns are sitting on the rocks at Xlendi; a little old lady is enjoying her coffee which seems to be piping hot, and one mother is bearing the brunt of a day by the sea with her nine kids in tow.
Debbie describes how the scenario had caught her attention one day at the beach.
“The husband had gone snorkelling leaving the wife to deal with her brood. She is just an insignificant splodge bent over at the side of the painting – I did this purposely to show how the children are taking over and literally overwhelming her.”
“My rule is to paint what amuses me, what pleases me. The first picture of this collection is the old man with his chiwuawa. It is a portrait more than anything else. But then my bus strikers in a meadow are closer to a caricature – my Games People Play mode is trying to break in.”
She observes, closely. A set of duo watercolours called Unkind Words shows two children in staggered scenes during what was undeniably the escalation and development of a tiff. From accusing to sulking, the mood of the pictures changes before our eyes.
And then there come the bikers. Darker frames line this lot and Debbie manages to wash down the tough guy image with soft watercolours that bring forth personality, stark, real and vivid. Going back to her old love of people and watercolours gets her into the mood for having fun with these images, bringing out the muscles and rough bikes, and yet merely telling us a story without too much of the revving engines.
Then there are the women framed in doorways, the ladies on a corner, the children and their animals. I stop to observe two choir boys quietly brooding during a religious function in Valletta. Close-ups. Real life images. Soft colours that speak of a not so distant past event that has mellowed and remains but a memory.
These are watercolour washes that are anything but washed out. The washes speak for themselves – they are sincerely speaking of moments in time, passages of people and the keen eye of an onlooker who just has to share what she sees.
‘Instant People – just add water’ is on at St James Cavalier, Valletta until 26 October. Opening hours: 09.30 – 21.00hrs daily. A limited number of 50 ‘Mother & Child’ prints from the series of the Immigrants’ paintings, are being sold in aid of The Hospice Movement.