We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ester Pugliese. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ester below.

Ester, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When I was eight I was so proud of a realistic labrador retriever I’d drawn. I also watched my mom transform from a hobby artist into an accomplished painter when she graduated from OCAD. Her journey inspired me to major in Visual Arts at an arts high school, which led to a BFA in Painting at York University (2001). Knowing that art was my strength in those formative years shaped the rest of my life/career decisions. I learned the basics through my arts/admin courses at university and college, which led to my working in galleries and doing marketing, PR and fundraising work for arts charities. All of that was useful.

Looking back, I could have sped up the process of finding my own style and subject matter by joining an artist collective immediately after finishing my degree. When I eventually did join a collective in 2009, I really benefited from having regular solo shows to work towards. Those shows were where I worked out my own voice and approach. In the collective I was surrounded by artists whose work I admired, while also coming to grips with the fact that even mid-career artists face the same struggles that emerging artists do, such as how to get noticed by art writers and curators or how to cultivate audiences and collectors of your work.

Ester, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Toronto-based mixed media painter. During my BFA at York University (2001), I participated in an exchange program in England, where my interest in discerning the line between abstraction and representation took hold. My recent work draws attention to the magnitude of today’s volatile earth forces which echo our societal unrest. In each piece, I strive to create a “portrait of a landscape”, intended as a metaphor for the ephemeral personal and interpersonal experiences that happen inside of us in day-to-day interactions. Carefully drawn outlines of flowers are layered with patches of colour that resemble abstracted land masses or approximations of the darks and lights in a bouquet of flowers. My sons were born in 2014 and 2018. Since then, I’ve found myself striving for a coral reef aesthetic in my paintings because the denseness/variety of shapes equates to the richness 0f the experience of parenting. The urge to protect our fragile, endangered reefs and forests echoes my maternal instincts.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Online communities are becoming the norm now, which is fantastic for visual artists who are always at risk of feeling isolated in their studio. I’ve found one called the Artist Alliance to be really inspiring, you can connect with and get wisdom from artists at varying stages of their careers. It’s also possible to work directly with art consultants virtually these days, which was unheard of a couple of decades ago. Some of them offer online art exhibition platforms and one-to-one coaching calls for artists. Online art marketplaces are also really useful for reaching broader audiences, which would have been great to have access to when I was just starting out. Currently, I have my work available through Partial Gallery, Saatchi Art and HelloArt, all of which are great services that cater to audiences that I wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In art school the prevailing ideal was to strive to be discovered by a reputable gallery, and of course artists felt pressured to make choices with that goal in mind. With the shift to online exhibitions and sales, which was accelerated by the pandemic, many artists are now questioning the need for a gallery. It’s never been more acceptable to take a DIY approach. That means as an artist I am able to foster personal connections with clients, choose to offer prints, or what have you, without worrying about whether a gallery is onboard with my approach. It also means, however, that you have to do the marketing, public relations and sales yourself. All of that work takes time away from actually making art, but in many ways it is a worthwhile endeavor. It really becomes a situation where your results are a reflection of how much work you put into it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.esterpugliese.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/ester_pugliese
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ester.pugliese/

Image Credits
Brian Burnett, Phil Tucker, Ester Pugliese