Debbie Caruana Dingli in action is a sight worth seeing. I have observed Debbie's art for many years now. When the task fell to me to prepare a preface for this most recent publication that focused entirely on her art, more specifically her sketches, I undertook the writing with pleasure. For several years I have attended regular portrait sessions, painting alongside Debbie where I have been constantly distracted by her great skill in pinning down a resemblance in less than three hours.

Commencing with some broad marks with a paint brush, this initial sketch, generally already bearing a strong resemblance to the sitter, would be quickly covered forever in her painterly strokes of vibrant colour that built the work into a finished painting. The loss of the sketch was compensated by a completed work that fizzed with life and immediacy. But not all her sketches are buried without trace in this way.

Back in 2015, 30 years after her first solo exhibition, Debbie was invited by Bank of Valletta to present a retrospective exhibition of her art. On that occasion I was asked to curate the exhibition and to prepare the catalogue, which included her biography as well as an assessment of her life in art. This gave me an incredible insight into the process of Debbie's art-making. I recall the job was made so much easier because Debbie had meticulously gathered boxes of cuttings of publications reviewing the three-decade long career. The photographs of most of the work she had produced were a ledger of all the paintings she had ever been commissioned to paint and then sold. There was also, and very significantly, a big pile of sketches. Most of them were in biro, dashed out on random scraps of paper. I remember being so taken by them that we somehow found a way of working the sketches into the exhibition. We reproduced a composite of these drawings onto transparent perspex panels which were later installed in a screen-like format in the exhibition hall. Bank of Valletta recognised their worth and when the exhibition was dismantled, they kept these panels and displayed them permanently among their art collection at the head office at Santa Venera.

It is not often that one is permitted an insight into the creative process that leads to a finished painting. The sketch is the link, the first evidence of the intangible idea that forms in the artist's mind, fixed into a visible mark. In the hands of a truly skilled artist, such as Debbie, it is honest, raw, direct and powerful. Not having the time to polish or perfect it also reveals the truth. Her sketches are not meant to be seen by the public but are intended simply to pin down the first thoughts of a potential work. The finished painting may be much altered and very different from this original drawing but juxtaposing the two can give the viewer an indication of what magic goes on in the creative process.

Collecting and presenting the sketches in The school playground is a bold act for an artist. In my opinion it is evidence of Debbie's confidence in her art. Debbie is not one to be proud or boastful - she rather likes taking the vain down a peg or two - but she knows the value of her art. She knows that her skill with the paintbrush, and yes, even the biro, is unassailable and feels confident enough to share these initial ideas with us. I have no doubt that these sketches are complete works of art in their own right.

A major hallmark of Debbie's art is her humour. Humour that is born of satire, she pokes fun at people and at situations that are almost uniquely identifiable to Maltese society. She depicts types, overflowing flesh, impossibly big noses, sometimes mercilessly. But she is also captivated by sad situations among groupings of people and depicts the downcast with empathy. The environment is another sad loser of man's insensate progress. Debbie transmits this tragedy time and again in her art, often in apparently light-hearted cartoons. But look again and you see a deeper more sinister message surfacing. As I have had occasion to mention elsewhere - Debbie has never been more serious than when she is laughing her hardest.

Copies available from www.kitegroup.com.mt or leading bookstores

Words: Francesca Balzan