Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1224129
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 MARCH 2020 5 al process to creating the works. Some of these places illustrated in the series have been sitting in my head for some time – they were just waiting for something to bring them out. That something was the paper they're painted on. Old government issue typewriter paper. A little longer and narrow- er than a A4 sheet, yellowish with age, flimsy and translucent, with encircled GM water marks over the surface. I found a stack of them. I drew a line across one with a black ink drafting pen, I liked the way the paper took the ink – clean crisp line, no bleeding. Offhandedly, I ran a brush busting with wa- ter colour to remove the excess water and, again, I liked the re- sult. Thin washes of watercolour opened up fairytale landscapes and the thicker application of the colour (to which the paper han- dled remarkably, to my surprise) allowed me to paint in stark de- tail. The architecture and geogra- phy within this series of work are parameters painted in to tell a story. All the buildings and surroundings are taken from dif- ferent countries I've travelled to. Places I've seen and experienced. The fairy tale atmosphere of the paintings was dictated by the pa- per, I simply went along with the story. What were the appealing, perhaps even escapist, char- acteristics that most clearly motivated you to come up with these other places? What are they 'other' to, exactly? Yes, escaping from this place in- to these paintings was appealing. I guess that's why I created them. I got to escape this world and sit down in my studio at my desk, listening to whatever I wanted to, and forget about the world outside me while getting lost in drawing ancient steps or paint- ing leaves on some forgotten tree temple. Whereas at the same time I am drawing everything from the same reality I am escaping. The vernacular architecture is stolen from scenes I've encountered here and there, and landscapes tweaked and exaggerated (or not) to create these Other Places, which when distilled, belong to this place only to be seen in dif- ferent lights. Are the scenes other to this or other to that? I don't know, they're just other places. What do you make of the local visual arts scene? What would you change about it? I suppose there is a scene in as much as there are people that meet up, exchange ideas with each other, drink and dance to- gether, argue amongst ourselves. That's a scene I guess.What's to change? The scene is what the scene is at any given moment in time and all I can do is throw my work into the mix. Plus with such luminary characters as Jose Her- rera, Jason Micallef and Phyllis Muscat leading the government's cultural institutions, the visual scene is bright: a carnival of col- our. If there is a scene, it is I sup- pose fragmented, albeit packed with talented individuals both local and foreign. With the covid-19 pandemic set to stretch into indefinite months, what role do you think artists have to play in bringing comfort, support and enlightenment to the wider population? I don't presume to know what an artist's role is on a 'normal' day, let alone during this pandemic. All I can offer is that anyone pro- fessing to being an artist knows that their art stems from their own examination of life around them, and that there is something (within me at least) that compels me to mark these observations – be it through drawing, painting, writing – and in other people's cases – song, music, dance, film. So as long as there is life there will be someone who will examine that life from their point of view and try in their own way to create something. And if they are compelled like me (from some form of twist- ed hubris), they will share their work. This may indeed enlighten, comfort and support the wid- er population, but it could and should also make people feel uncomfortable, question them- selves and prod. But, yes, if I can make some- body laugh at these trying times or bring some form of enlight- enment then I guess… job well done. But there's also the matter of artists needing to support themselves while they work. What kind of positive structural changes (institutional, social, cultural) would you hope to see once the current crisis abates? How should I know? I just paint and draw. I desperately do not want to deal with these issues. There are many people who fet- ishise over controlling and set- ting up these aspects about art, I don't want to have anything to do with it. Something simple that's been happening for centuries: if you like an artist and you've got the capital, then become a patron to that artist. Stop buying expensive white Audi SUVs, you wankers, and buy art! THIS WEEK ART practicing social media distancing' "Stop buying expensive white Audi SUVs, you wankers, and buy art!" The paintings forming part of Seb Tanti Burlo's 'Other Places' series are made up of imagi- nary fragments of various places the artist had visited in the past