Following an inclination that he could do better than the statues he saw, Mario Borg decided to take up his wife’s challenge to create something extraordinary.

Meeting us at his workshop – Awwista garage, in Mosta, Mr Borg explained he has no background in art or sculpting, yet started carving a niche for himself out of clay.

By trial and error as well as online research, he created his first statue – Our Lady of Mont Carmel and then moved on to making the Statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, which he then painted.

The name of his workshop is not a coincidence as Mario Borg is in fact a fishmonger who does daily rounds selling fish in Attard.

While not being the calm or patient type, he relaxes by spending at least a couple of hours every late afternoon, clay modelling and etching details out of his statues.

In need to find a bigger challenge, Mr Borg visited St John’s co-Cathedral and after studying Caravaggio’s world-renowned paintings, he created 3-D models of the Beheading of St John and later St Jerome. The detail in these works, coupled with the fact that he needed to use his creativity and imagination to create models based on paintings, encouraged him further and he moved on to creating statues based on his own imagination, often inspired by Greek mythology.

His ‘Man Fighting Lion’, ‘Man Destroying World’ and ‘Hercules Killing the Centaur’, are among his most detailed.

Yet his favourite is ‘Perseus Killed Medusa’ which must be studied at length to be appreciated for what it is.

Work on small details, especially bones and skeletons, is the most challenging he points out. He works from photos or pictures found online or in booklets.

After mastering his techniques in the detailed statues, he moved on to making busts of his wife and two daughters as well as commissioned works.

The statue he is working on is a bust of the late Auxiliary Bishop Annetto Depasquale. This has taken him some 60 hours and although looking complete to the inexperienced eye, it still needs some finishing touches before being taken for firing.

Mr Borg is self-taught, yet he often takes the advice of well-known ceramist Paul Haber, who encourages him a lot and criticises his work continuously.

Mr Borg has a collection of 23 statues and seven busts.

Last January he held an exhibition titled ‘L-Isfida Minquxa’ (The Carved Challenge), at Ir- Razzett tal- Markiz Mallia Tabone, in Mosta, and is planning another in a couple of years.