Six questions for
Esther Gatón

How do you describe your own art practice?

Process and conversation-based. My practice is very passive, I essentially follow gestures, wonders and words, and see where they take me. It’s maybe due to this approach that I often work hand-made and love to include others in the making, so that my tendencies can be easily disrupted.

Which question or theme is central to your work?

I like to think of each show as the first one, trying to get rid of previous ideas and preferred ways of working. Even though some questions do reappear and have me hooked, I would not want to choose a topic on top of another. I work until whatever it is I’m making (an installation, a piece of writing, a drawing, an encounter, a present for a friend…) feels strange; as if it had been made by someone else. Then, when I’m able to be surprised, amazed and/or terrified by the product, it’s time to share it.

What was your first experience with art?

I remember an exhibition with of drawings by Joan Miró, installed in a small public hall in my hometown. I could hardly reach the vitrines because I was too small and stupefied. Miró still is one of my favourite artists.

But speaking of early aesthetic experiences, I sometimes think that all those long hours I spent in big churches during mass, when I was a kid, have most likely shaped my sensibility and ways of looking around. I remember being so deeply bored and disconnected from the ritual, that my eyes would desperately look for stimuli and invent stories with whatever was in sight: vandalised altarpieces, dusty gold, lacquered hairstyles, shivering shadows, fragmented sentences, smells and guitar worship songs. All this collapsed in my hallucinated infantile brain and I would often lose track of time. It was like playing in silence, and I now think of art experiences as spaces a bit like that, where reality gets dismantled.

What is your greatest source of inspiration?

Others, any relationship. Not only the people that I admire and have lovely conversations with, but also those who annoy, upset and infuriate me. I´m oddly grateful for the unpleasant encounters and distasteful confrontations, as they really put me to work.

I believe it is not said enough, how much of the creative thrive arises from boiling blood.

What do you need in order to create your work?

Someone to talk to and something to write on; those are the essentials. I now also have a studio, with some materials and tools, which helps me invent a routine and a sense of fake stability, so I use it and love being there. I like to keep my studio almost empty and well-organised, with no previous works on view. I need this void.

What work or artist has most recently surprised you?

A few weeks ago, Per Kikerby’s painting show at Michaerl Werner Gallery, in Berlin. His works deeply amaze me. Maybe ‘surprise’ is not the exact word, but I was astonished by the feeling of not wanting to leave after an hour of wandering around. I could not have enough of it.