Irene: It is true that till now we mostly discussed about emotivity, spirituality and religion. When looking back, the exhibition betrays a sort of emotional recurrence akin to a Mediterranean cliché. What I paradoxically find most interesting on the island is the negation of this Mediterranean cliché. It is very far from being the small uncorrupted virgin land in the middle of urbanization and the built landscape impressed me. One of the cultural landscapes that best encapsulates this historic attitude of being productive, the need to construct and connect, is undoubtedly Grand Harbour. That is also the reason why in the first section we engage with a series of ‘ built’ landscapes, particularly Upper Baracca. Darren, I am asking this because your work on show is a landscape view, but an unusual one. It shows a very contemporary building, even if impacting on a very historic site. Iit is difficult to choose which one of the two is more central. Which was your main focus? were you more interested in the past, in the contemporary or upon their interaction?

Darren: Am quite sure that till the time it was exhibited, the painting of the lift was the only landscape that I ever exhibited. The reason is that I do not usually paint landscapes, they do not really come to my mind when I think about producing my art. My thoughts and ideas are more easily conceptualized through the human body or other objects. Nowadays I draw and paint landscapes because issues related to development and environment entered my preoccupations.

Sandro: ... and yet Karmenu Mangion chose his inspiration from Malta’s industrial heritage, a subject matter that in spite of standing tall in the name of progress is now no more and replaced by contemporary architecture immortalised in a traditional medium and composition.

Darren: The painting was a commission by AP with a specific intent, that of interpreting AP architecture project in painting. Since at the time I was still experimenting with interpretations of contemporary issues painted in chiaroscuro and old masters’ techniques, Konrad Buhagiar felt that I was an ideal fit to carry out the artwork. For the project, ‘time, space, existence’ AP wanted to show how the Barrakka lift inhabited the same space occupied by the bastions in an effortless natural manner. Thus it was decided that instead of a painting representing the Barrakka lift in contemporary manner (whatever such a thing might mean), I interpreted it using old masters’ manner of painting to transport the new structure into a past that never actually existed.

Irene: Darren’s artwork counter-pairs with Mangion’s version of the historic Barrakka lift. The urban landscape was also central to Barthet’s rooftops series, in which the composition was one united thing with the subject.