Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1541557
1. What's been the most defining moment in your career so far? At this stage in my career, I'd say each and every event, project, discussion, exhibition, both in Malta and international, has been significant in shaping me. I've exhibited with international artists of whom I never dreamt I'd hang my work alongside theirs. I've had a solo at Spazju Kreattiv, a space I've always deemed magical. I had my very first solo ex- hibition exactly 10 years ago there and I still look back on it with pride. There have been many obstacles. And I'm especially grateful to the people who reacted to my work along these years, even those who offered the most unexpected interpretations which said more about them than about my paintings. My work has been defined by all this. 2. As an artist, how do you navigate the world and speed of social media? It's always been an important tool for me, from the beginning of my career, and it's proven extremely valuable. I realise now there was a time in the past when I was dependent on it. I feel I manage to strike a better balance these days. I use it purely to expose my work to an ever-wider audience. Love it or hate it, it's a vital instrument in all sectors, let alone in visual art, where a platform like Instagram whose strength lies in the visual. Thanks to it, I can sustain a dia- logue with my audience who wish to directly or indirectly engage with my work. 3. Do you consider artificial intelligence a threat to your career, or an opportunity? Neither. I'm a romantic. I believe in the human spirit and its unparalleled strength and richness. That belief is the bedrock of who I am as an artist. AI is the latest of many challenges. Artists have always been under pressure. It's in the white-hot incandescence of the struggle to preserve their voice and uniqueness that the human element is at its purest. The human spirit has always prevailed and I choose to hope that it will do so once more. I know, of course, that the opportunities provided to humans by AI are truly wondrous. I am also very much aware that in other sectors outside art, the impact of AI can be devastating. But I give all my soul, energy, time, thought to my work so I tell myself no machine can match that. 4. How do you stay motivated and inspired, especially during tough times or when the work feels hard? There are moments when I doubt myself, I won't lie. They arise very often—everyday, I daresay. There are times when I'm more eager than usual to arrive at the studio and start the day's work. At other times, frustra- tion blocks my path. But all of that serves to eventually give my work the contours it takes. Everyday I find sources of motivation and inspiration. All that I encounter is food for my art. I've always observed hungrily, felt deeply, listened intently, and I'm constantly aching to express those experiences in my work. How to express them is a different matter. I'm constantly experimenting with new languages to transmit the excitement of living onto canvas and on to my viewers. 5. How do you balance your creative instincts with the expectations of your audience or collaborators? I don't. There were times very early in my career when I'd worry about what A or B con- siders valid art, what they wish from me as an artist. Now I know that many artists, even extremely talented ones, are spoiled by the curse of trying too hard and trying to please. The way I approach my art is immersing myself in the moment and letting go. That includes letting go of what I know other peo- ple expect of me and my works. You have to accept you can't please everyone. You have to accept you can't set out to please, full stop. The weight of people's expectations is oppressive. You have to silence their voices in your head, the voices of commentators, of mere observers, as well as the voices of the gatekeepers of the art world. Your work will vindicate you if you let it speak for itself instead of making it speak for others. Those who don't like my art have all the right not to. All I care about is that what I put on canvas is authentically mine, not other people's. That, and not forcing the art. What happens afterwards is not important. There have been many who misinterpreted it, or used the themes in my work for their own advance- ment or for their own arguments or to fill their own empty portfolio or that of their friends. My work speaks for itself. Its soul remains intact; however, people react to it. The rest is secondary. Including my ego. 6. How do you approach a new project? Do you have a specific process or routine you follow? Up till the recent past, I would create a number of works specifically for a particu- lar project, which would quite often be a response to the previous project. I've always felt each project should have its own unique identity. For example, the Spazju Kreattiv project was intended as a conversation with the pictorial and literary titans of the past. The Irish project was different, as for the first time ever I created neo-expressionist work. It was dedicated to someone who had just entered my life and taught me new ways of perception, and of being in this world in a more present and tangible way. The work intended for London was again dif- ferent: I used the language of the contempo- rary artists I was exhibiting with, a language I had long desired to speak in. What I'm doing now is savouring the freedom and the strength paint has when I allow it to take the form of pure expression instead of constrain- ing it to submit to the demands of narrative. It's an almost spiritual experience, painting in this way, without schematic academic narratives. Folk tales, mythology, literature, they are all still there, but in a different way. It's a welcome experience for me to enter the studio and let the cathartic ritual of painting without projects or deadlines take me where it will. 7. Can you let us in on some of the future project works? As I was saying, at the moment I'm so happy to have no deadlines. I do have something in mind that I plan to discuss with a person- ality on the Maltese scene whom I admire immensely. But no big projects. I've started to prefer an intimate experience. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity of large projects but at the moment I'm more focused on applied projects, specific ones, and instal- lations attuned to the language I wish to communicate in at present. maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 NOVEMBER 2025 Theatre A bilingual story of a modern woman in a historic land PAGE 2 Theatre Moveo's Nutcracker at Teatru Manoel: Where classical meets contemporary dance PAGE 3 ARTS • TV • WHAT'S ON BY LAURA CALLEJA suggestions by email lcalleja@mediatoday.com.mt The Q & A GABRIEL BUTTIGIEG 7 questions for... Extra round Who are your biggest influences, and how have they shaped your work? There are too many. I've always freely admitted that I'm extremely impressionable, easily influenced. I'm influenced by everything I see, smell, taste, by other people's stories, experiences I read about in books, giants who lived before me and what they tried to create. By music, which I'm obsessed with, and the melody and melan- choly it evokes. By other people's demons. The desires and fears we stifle within us. Human beings' complex mind, what distinguishes us from other creatures and what makes us the same. Instincts, insecurities, fears and how society impinges on them. Above all, right now, by my partner, Estelle Abela, whom I am immensely grateful to have met, and who believes in what I am and what I offer, and by her son who daily teaches me what it means to love and to be grateful. Gabriel Buttigieg is a Malta- based visual artist working primarily in drawing and painting. His work explores universal themes, drawing on primordial, tribal, Mediterranean, and Grecian myths, reinterpreted through a contemporary psychological lens. Buttigieg has exhibited internationally and been featured in publications including Wall Street International, ArtDependence Magazine, and The Irish Times. MaltaToday is supported by Arts Council Malta