Studio Visit: Esther Sibiude


Studio Visit: Esther Sibiude

“People have seen my drawings and told me that they look very fetus-like or womb-like. I think that was also part of my sculptural work, where I was always interested in the domestic and the idea of layering as protection, like a roof, or skin. Ultimately, it’s all linked to habitation.”

Sibiude says this as we flip through an old pseudoscience book she keeps in her studio.

Esther Sibiude is New York-based visual artist, harpist and writer. Her exhibition, ‘The Big Crunch’, showcased at Entrance Gallery in New York City in 2023, explored the intricate relationship between nature, science, and the human experience, blurring the boundaries between abstraction and meaning. Our writer Lyssa Sartori visited Sibiude’s studio to discuss her process, the role of storytelling in her practice, and the fascination with science and the collective desire for knowledge.

Sibiude’s exhibit ‘Plot of the Blue Thread’ is open from January 10th, 2025 to February 15th, 2025 at Jack Barrett Gallery.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): What compelled you to work with the medium of colored pencil?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: It was definitely a lucky accident. I was coming from sculpture which was taking up a lot of space and was heavy. I was working with concrete, making sculptures out of styrofoam packaging from TVs and other electronics. The colored pencil was a way to take a break from the heaviness. I had this epiphany — realizing that the colored pencil itself is material, it is dust, and I can build off of that dust, creating layers, but also working with a whole new time frame and patience because the drawings take a while. I think of their time span of how nature creates, I try as much as possible to give them the time they need, letting them emerge and grow, like a plant would.

One morning of all the mornings in the world, existence and its problematic aspect rose. Somewhere in this chaotic universe, in a relatively rare occurrence, molecular randomness generated organic proteins, 2018
Colored pencil on paper
25.5 x 31.5 inches

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): I really admire your ability to be patient and work on something for a long period of time. I remember looking at your work closely and thinking, “Wow, there are so many layers and so much detail.” It made me wonder how long it took you to finish a piece.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: It’s hard to say, because I start a drawing at a certain moment in time, then often pause for a while, sometimes months or years, before adding to it again. There’s so much happening in the under layers that gets forgotten and covered up but is still an important part of it.

Nowadays, there’s this puzzle element that’s new to my process, which is creating this infinite possibility of adding more. Like, this one — I know I’m pretty sure it will get twice as big by adding more panels to it. Who knows when it will stop?

Her mind slipped down the stairs, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
26.5 x 38.5 inches

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): Did you already know that you wanted to work on those puzzled pieces or was this an intuitive process?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: It feels like it was an organic development, like the division of a cell. I started with four panels, then I added the smaller ones around later on.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): You mentioned working with sculpture in the past. Do you consider working with other mediums outside sculpture or colored pencil?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: I’m happy with the focus that I found with working on paper.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE):  It seems like this medium gives you this space that you need right now. This reminded me of an essay by Amy Sillman, about painting versus drawing. She says, “Maybe drawers are people who need to feel something in their hand while thinking the world into existence.”

ESTHER SIBIUDE: Drawing is more integrated into reality than painting is. Painting on canvas delimits itself from the rest of the world. Drawing is part of daily life, because it has a document aspect to it, it’s close to writing, sketching a note or a grocery list. I love to look at maps and scientific diagrams. Drawing is a way to think the world. It’s interesting to look at those old scientific diagrams, which are considered wrong now, they’re so poetic because they reflect this desire to know, to grasp something.

The hill had only one side and it fell over, 2018-2022
Colored pencil on paper
25.5 x 31.5 inches

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): Did becoming a parent change your worldview? How do you think this reflects in your practice?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: I haven’t quite reflected on it yet. It’s definitely slowed things down in the studio, and it’s honestly putting a lot of economic pressure on surviving by making drawings on paper. But it’s clear that having a child and being an artist shows you a lot about the priorities you have to set. I have to organize my time extremely well. Having a child definitely gives you more of a routine, and it’s really nice for that. There’s actually a certain rhythm to taking care of someone that I really appreciate and love.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): You’re involved with writing and also music. How did visual art come into your life?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: Music came first. I started playing the harp when I was seven years old. I played until I was around 15, then I took a break. After high school, I studied philosophy, and then I moved to Berlin to study fine arts. Once I finished studying visual arts, I started playing the harp again. I was always interested in art and looking at art history. When I studied philosophy, I missed the visual aspect of thinking and playing with ideas. I felt a desire to have an expressive outlet for those ideas.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): I’m curious to ask, what are your influences in music and art?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: I listen to different genres — classical, folk, opera, jazz, and so on. When I’m drawing, I prefer to listen to scientific podcasts and all kinds of topics on the radio or to nothing at all. Music is another one of those mediums that’s really radical. Like I was saying in the beginning, sculpture and painting are very imposing, and music is the same — you can’t escape it. The music performances I’ve been making are very much connected to the audience and to people. They’re also about connecting with my peers and collaborating. They’re not isolating at all; they’re out there in the real world. On the other hand, drawing is much more of a mental escape. It’s solitary, quiet, and secret. Even if you exhibit it, nobody can truly read through those layers. They’re very different, but maybe the narrative aspect connects them in a way. There’s some kind of mythology, fiction, or storytelling happening — both in the pencil lines and in the music notes and text.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): Music can be very distracting and it can also influence what you’re trying to do.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: Exactly. And I think when I’m drawing, I’m trying to tune into something — some kind of background noise, a primitive sound, or something bigger that we can’t fully grasp. Music would be totally distracting for that. What I do like, though, and I do this sometimes, is listen to scientific podcasts where I don’t understand a word of what they’re talking about. It makes me daydream.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): What have you been reading?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: I read my friend’s book, The Ginny Suite by Stacy Skolnik. It’s an autofiction, sci-fi book. So poetic, beautiful and weird. It’s a really good piece of artwork. It’s a collage of texts, all in different styles, that fit perfectly together into a story, It’s sad and funny, which I think is always the best form of art.

I’ve been looking at two painters lately, one of them is Andrew Kerr and the other one is Thomas Nozkowski. Nozkowski had a show at Pace of his last paintings before he passed away. Toward the end of his life, he was doing these 16 by 20-inch paintings. For a long time, he stuck to this small format. They’re all little ideas and thoughts. It’s kind of rare for me to really become a fan of someone.

We were to be found in the eternal return of the same. Under the rays of a dark sun that shone like a womb and spread its colors throughout the universe. While narratives and history proliferated their shadows disintegrated, 2022
Colored pencil and watercolor on paper
26.5 x 38.5 inches

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): In your last show, one of the things that drew my attention were the titles for each artwork. Especially The universe in a semicircle, moving towards the void and the world naps in dust. It almost feels like poetry. How do the titles and the paintings come together?

ESTHER SIBIUDE: In a way, I don’t know. They are short stories, little allegories. Because some of the titles are really long and some are short. But it’s always some kind of origin story.

Flowers travel by night, 2022
Colored pencil on paper
25.5 x 31.5 inches

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): How do you approach your color palette in your process? I couldn’t help but notice the color contrast between Flowers Travel by Night and the other pieces in the show.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: It’s very intuitive. When I look back now, chronologically, the pieces I created before the ones in the show were lighter with more negative space in them. The work was so minimal that, sometimes, you could hardly see anything. Those pieces stayed in the drawers for a long time. Over time, I started pulling some out and adding to them, and as the years passed, they just kept getting denser, brighter and darker. Some of that batch stayed very light, but when I started new ones, I began doing the opposite. I would fill the space, layering and layering, and gradually move away from the white emptiness as part of the work.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): About what you said earlier, the idea of seeking something greater than what you actually are. This is not necessarily in a spiritual sense, but I often believe there’s something that binds us together, as humans. Some sort of collective unconscious. When any sort of artwork moves you and a large group of people, it might lead to the thinking: there is something more to this. The endless search for something lost or something bigger than yourself.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: I totally agree with you that the work can be a form of meditation. It’s a way to tune into some kind of white noise. But it’s not just any white noise — it’s this cosmic white noise that you’re trying to connect to.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): Your paintings are trying to translate that idea of seeking. For some, this desire might lead to the feeling of despair.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: There’s this common desire for knowledge. I look at that desire as an attempt to find knowledge or truth — to understand why we’re here, the origin of everything. I like to get lost in it. It’s about getting lost. The path to knowing shows you how much you don’t know. And that not knowing definitely connects to that feeling of a void — like what you’re talking about, the cosmic void. Confronting that void is definitely part of making art in my opinion.

LYSSA SARTORI (ARTPYRE): The work confronts this void, but it doesn’t seem to translate into despair or hopelesness.

ESTHER SIBIUDE: The unknown gives room to imagination and storytelling. It’s really more about life force than something linked to despair. Life, desire and art making grows no matter what happens. That’s what I see, too, even with a baby around. It continues growing.

The polluted dream froze her eyelashes and turned the butterfly-shaped gland in her throat into a pebble, 2020
Colored pencil on paper
25.5 x 32.5 inches

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