After 16 exhibitions at il-Kamra ta' Fuq, it is finally happening - the first landscapes exhibition! Sarah Calleja will be taking the visitors on a tour of the Grand Harbour and revealing angles, corners, scenery and details, which are at times maybe taken for granted and others more picturesque which are more familiar to us all.

Why the Grand Harbour?

The Grand Harbour is a testament of our existence as an island and it instils a feeling of magic, of identity, of appreciation of its present beauty, and curiosity about its past and tales untold.

For Sarah, the Grand Harbour brings a sense of nostalgia and memories of her grandmother who used to recount stories from her childhood and the war period from around the Grand Harbour area, both tragic and other more joyous like the arrival of the Santa Marija Convoy, which coincidentally is also tied to the exhibition, as the closing date is in fact 15 August.

Calleja is known for landscapes executed en plein air and mostly for her watercolours, but not only. Her works are normally very atmospheric and not overworked, leaving a touch of the "plein air" within the works.

Many of her works are not merely descriptive of the landscape and the fleeting atmosphere but are also a reflection of the artists emotions. Case in point is 'Red Aura', currently part of the collective exhibition 'A Midsummer's Red Dream', at BOCO Boutique Hotel, where the red landscape executed in acrylics is brimming with motherly strong emotions and mixed feelings, painted just after the birth of Calleja's first child.

Around a year ago, I had the pleasure to see a particular artwork by Sarah, 'Delimara 5', which made me stop in my tracks and look very closely to double check the artist's name. I felt that something happened there and that Calleja started moving in another direction - an unexpected one - within what one expects in the watercolour landscapes realm. The artwork shows an almost abstraction of Delimara bay, dark, daring, bold and captivating. The small work was first exhibited at Art by the Seaside and is currently part of the semi-private gallery - 'Żewġ Ħitan @60' in Rabat.

And this all brings me to my next point. Two of the works exhibited in HARBOURED ('Birgu' and 'Kalkara Creek') are monochrome. Calleja created two curious scenes, excellently balanced between the real and the surreal, utilizing only black (carefully chosen) pigment on white paper and the water as a medium in itself. The brushstrokes are soft, perfectly, and harmoniously placed, which evoke this sense of calmness and peace. She omitted the sky - how dare she!? - the basic element that aids in fashioning the atmosphere is replaced by the immaculate whiteness of the paper. We do not know if it is morning, evening or night. We are lost, but we know exactly where we are.

Another of the works 'Senglea' is in black and snippets of a brownish ochre, and again, the sky is the whiteness of the paper. But here, the medium is water-based oils and the brushwork evokes a strength and an aggressiveness which was not present in the other two works - almost a reflection of an internal turmoil.

The artworks are all accompanied by beautiful thoughts or memories of the artist while executing the works or searching for the right place and view, which makes every artwork so personal and so much part of Calleja's soul. En plein air painting comes with its ups and downs and one of the annotations by the artist is about 'Il- Moll tal-Faħam 1'. While painting this work by the sea, a gust of wind blew the finished artwork into the water. The ruined artwork was fished out of the sea and a copy of it was executed in the more safer studio ambient. A few small bozzetti showing the studies and colour experimentations processes, have been included in the exhibition. Two other small works which express shocking bright block colours are delving into more abstract investigation and... maybe a sign of things to come?

"Working both en plein air and in the studio with this collection of works I feel that I have harboured the sense of place within each painting," said Sarah Calleja, an architect by profession. Calleja has participated in numerous collective exhibitions both locally and abroad and 'Harboured' is her second solo exhibition.

The exhibition is being held at il-Kamra ta' Fuq in Mqabba, till 15 August. For more info follow the Facebook page: il-Kamra ta' Fuq