My essentials: Nicole Debono’s cultural picks

About  

Nicole Debono is a visual artist working primarily in figurative painting. Her practice explores memory, embodiment, and the unstable boundary between what is visible and what is withheld, treating the domestic as a psychologically charged site where private ritual and collective myth converge. Her current solo exhibition, Visions Are Seldom What They Seem, at the Malta Society of Arts, further develops these concerns through layered, allegorical compositions.

Book

A book I read recently that stayed with me, as one can tell from my latest solo Visions Are Seldom What They Seem, is A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. What I found most compelling is how relevant it still feels. Her argument is not only about literal space, but about the conditions needed to think, make, and exist freely. I keep returning to it because it gave language to things I had felt intuitively, especially around independence, creative work, and the question of what it means to claim space for yourself.

Film 

One of my favourite films is Poor Things. I loved the book first, so I was curious to see how it would be adapted, and I thought the film and its imagery was brilliant. I enjoyed how visually confident and strange it was, without losing the wit, discomfort, and emotional complexity that made the story so memorable in the first place. It is one of those rare adaptations that feels fully alive in its own language.

Internet and TV 

I’m not much of a TV person, but I love falling into a YouTube deep dive while I’m painting. While I was working on Visions Are Seldom What They Seem, I became especially absorbed in videos about anthropology and ancient human species. I find that kind of research fascinating and creatively stimulating all at once. There’s something so enthralling about tracing origins, fragments, and theories of how people once lived, especially while making work that also deals with memory, inheritance, and narrative.

Music 

An album I have been especially drawn to is Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party by Hayley Williams. I picked it because it is emotionally raw, sharp, and deeply self-aware without ever becoming heavy-handed. I’m drawn to its artistry and the way it holds contradiction so well—it can feel playful, anxious, intimate, and unguarded all at once. It is the kind of album that feels both diaristic and theatrical, which makes it especially memorable to me.

Place 

A place I would return to without hesitation is Scotland. I’m drawn to its moody light, the shifting weather, the dramatic stillness of its landscapes, and the sense that history seems to cling to everything. There is something haunting and magnetic about it, as though the land is holding stories just beneath the surface. I love places that feel slightly otherworldly, and Scotland has that quality for me. It is beautiful, melancholic, and impossible to forget.