Art in Conversation
Daniel Arteaga

Hot Sheet’s upcoming exhibition, 'Where the Wind Takes Us', opening on 15th October 2025 at Fitzrovia Gallery, featuring artist Daniel Arteaga. Curators Jasper Jones & Lauren Wells discuss the show and Daniel practice, in the lead up to the show.

Lauren:
Daniel, we are so excited to be working with you on your upcoming solo show Where The Wind Takes Us and it is great to have the opportunity to sit down and talk to you about the work. We have a few questions, first being, the Tajada kites are a key motif for the show - what do they mean to you?

Daniel:
For me, they’re about memory and connection to my culture, specifically very personal memories. I learned how to make them with my brother. We would sit together, searching for scraps - bean bags, anything we could find - to build the kites. It was playful but also creative, using whatever was around us, even rubbish, to make something that could fly. Those moments were about invention, joy, and being resourceful. And because it happened every August, it holds a special place in my memory.

Jasper:
How old were you then?

Daniel:
Around eight or nine.

Jasper:
And why return to kites now, at this stage in your practice? How do they connect with the paintings you’re making?

Daniel:
That’s a great question. The idea resurfaced when I saw a work by the artist Prince Gyasi who incorporated kites into his photography. It immediately reminded me of my own experience building kites as a child. I thought, “Why not bring that into my work now?”

I think what struck me was how making kites might seem childish, but for me, it was actually the beginning of discovering creativity - experimenting, playing, finding solutions. By bringing them into my practice now, I’m embracing that same spirit of invention and play.

I’ve also always wanted my paintings to move, and part of that comes from experimenting with the shapes of the canvases themselves.

What’s happening in the work feels like a self-referential loop, where one element points back to another - just as in life, where meaning is constantly folded back on itself. The paintings begin to imitate kites, embodying a sense of movement and flight, while the kites in turn feel like paintings, since they are literally painted objects.

I find it compelling to play with this act of referencing, between shapes, gestures, and ideas, to blur the boundaries of what is considered a painting and what is not.

Lauren:
It is so wonderful to hear about that process. 

In the last year, you’ve moved away from photography and started creating paintings that come directly from memory and feeling. What allowed you to make that change?

Daniel:
I think it was about muting certain voices in myself, voices telling me, “It has to be this way or that way.” For a long time, I was looking outside for inspiration, almost finding excuses to make art. But recently, I started to embrace my own desires, to turn inward instead. I decided to really listen to my own voice.

Lauren:
And trust that voice?

Daniel:
Exactly. It’s similar to how I’ve approached the kites. I’ve been looking back, reflecting on when I first decided to become an artist. Remembering that moment helps me now, because it was a time when I was most confident in myself.

Lauren:
Yes. To be so brave in that moment and say, “I’m going to do this. I have something to express, and I want to express it.” That’s such a difficult decision to make.

Daniel:
It is. But reconnecting with that original choice, that feeling, gives me strength now.

Jasper:
We’ve spoken before about the sense of mystery in your work, and how much you enjoy the unknown. What is it about that process that excites you? What happens for you during the journey of making?

Daniel:
Since high school, I’ve always been very interested in philosophy. Honestly, nothing else really captured me, not history, not even English. (laughs) Which is funny, living in England. But philosophy mattered, because I wanted to look into the truth of things. I’ve always been suspicious about life. There are moments when I realise I am myself—like looking through a window and suddenly feeling alive. I try to capture that sense of the now in my paintings. If I succeed, it feels like I’m connecting with something beyond what I already know. Painting becomes a kind of conversation: am I really answering you, or not?  It’s a conversation with the outside world - with what we sense.

Jasper:
That’s really interesting. Would you say that it has a spiritual dimension?

Daniel:
Absolutely. I feel that very strongly. It comes during the process, for example when  I work in my sketchbook. Sometimes I draw just because I need to, without knowing why. Then, weeks later, after life has happened, I’ll look back and suddenly understand why I made that drawing. It becomes a conversation between past and future colliding. That begins in the sketchbook, and then I translate it to canvas. Of course, once I’m painting in the studio, it becomes very physical. Whatever happens that day influences me. Sometimes I have a clear sketch, but the final painting turns out completely different.

Lauren:
It also reminds me of what you’ve said before: that sometimes you look at a finished work and think, “How did I do that?” (laughs) Like you’re surprised at what’s come through—something you didn’t plan.

Daniel:
Exactly. I often feel lucky, like these images arrived through me. At university I learned that you have to embrace that - to take the plunge, go all in, or else you’ll never reach those moments. For example, with the kites, I only decided the day before to paint them all together. I kept asking myself, “What should I do?” But in the making, I realised I needed more action, so the lines came in - spontaneous and energetic.

Lauren:
And they feel so connected, like part of one body of work.

Daniel:
That’s because they are. Even if I didn’t see it at first, the paintings were in conversation with each other. That’s the mystery again: you don’t always know the connections until they’ve already happened. And then you look back and think, “Ah, yes - it couldn’t have been any other way.”

Lauren:
This next question extends from what we were just discussing. Your work is very abstract, but sometimes subtle figures appear. Is this something you plan, or does it just happen?

Daniel:
The figures just come out on their own, I don’t really plan it. For example, in my last painting for the degree show, I was cutting paper, spraying on top, removing it, and adding paint again. I wasn’t thinking about creating a figure, but it emerged anyway. If I tried to plan them, I think they would feel boring.

Lauren:
That degree show painting almost looked like a flower coming to life.

Daniel:
And that’s what makes the work exciting. At the same time, it can also be frustrating. You want to come up with strong ideas every time, because if you don’t, it feels disappointing. It’s a difficult balance.

Lauren:
But I think the way you play with colour makes it so interesting. The relationships between colors can shift the whole painting, without it being planned. It brings in a completely different element.

Daniel:
Colour is so important. When you play with it, you can create different sensations. Even if the image suggests a human form, changing the colors can transform its feeling entirely.

Lauren:
And the way colors react to each other on canvas is completely different too.

Daniel:
That’s where the energy comes from. It’s not just me putting colors down - it’s me responding to what they’re doing together,

Jasper:
How have your experiences of migrating from Colombia influenced the themes and moods within your work?

Daniel:
I think the most important feeling is belonging. When I make art, I find my own space. Because, you know, when you live in another country, walking down the street you never quite feel, “This is my place” - because it isn’t. But when I’m making art, it becomes a space I create for myself. It’s mine. So yes, belonging is at the heart of it.

Jasper:
Like building a home within your work.

Daniel:
Like building a home. For example, the painting in the degree show, Yerba Mala. The idea came because, when I saw the image, I felt there was someone looking toward the horizon—and I realized it was me. The paintings were speaking more about me than I could through words. So when I’m painting, it’s my voice, a way of belonging, of making a place.

Lauren:
That’s what’s so hard to do in everyday life, through words, or even through communication as a person. But art can be this channel for pure self-expression, for connecting to your deeper sense of self.

Daniel:
That’s true. It’s difficult for me to express myself fully in words. I can say things, but to speak them aloud, to really convey them—it’s very hard.

Lauren:
Yes. Communicating in general can feel so limited. It’s hard to fully understand another person. But art offers a way to connect directly with someone’s emotions, their sense of self, their way of thinking. Especially with abstraction -it’s not literal, but it carries so much feeling. That’s what makes it so powerful.

Jasper: 

The exhibition is called Where the Wind Takes Us. How does the idea of movement play into these works?

Daniel:
Well, like with the kites. I think of them as personifying ideas, floating above, suspended in space. When I’m making work, it feels the same. Ideas are flying around my head, and I let them move freely. Sometimes I catch one, sometimes I let it go. There’s a flow to it. That’s where the title connects for me: the kites become a metaphor for my own thinking process.

Jasper:
There’s also this sense of spontaneity, of the unknown. You’re allowing things to happen, you leave it to chance, to Mother Nature, to this force that’s always moving around us.

Daniel:
Yes, that’s true. And it’s good you remind me of that, because when I think about my painting process - using brushes, stencils, spray paint. I’m always asking myself, how can I explore these techniques further?  You have to listen to the materials, to the paint itself. How spray paint behaves, how it can form shapes, lines, even text. Listening to the material is also a way of listening to the unknown—of being open to the potential within it. It’s a conversation.

Lauren:
We’ve touched on this a little, but playfulness and spontaneity feel central to your practice, especially in the work you’re making now. Could you share a specific moment where an unexpected gesture changed the whole dynamic of a painting, like the actual gesture you made?

Daniel:
I think it happens when I try to let the painting lead me. I’ll set up these fields where I begin with one idea, and then I’ll deliberately cover a certain part of the canvas to restart the “game.” For example, in the painting I made for my degree show, I covered the entire middle area with brushstrokes to create a kind of ground, and then I sprayed on top of it. That completely shifted the sensation of the piece, it opened something new for me. It was this moment of surprise: Oh, wow, I can actually do more than I expected. That kind of discovery is really exciting.

Lauren:
When you’re surprised by your own gestures. (laughs)

Daniel:
Exactly. And you learn from it and suddenly your repertoire expands. Now, with the kites I’ve been making, I started thinking about them as sculptures. People often say they look sculptural, and although I had thought about it before, hearing it affirmed made me consider it more seriously. Maybe they don’t have to be kites at all, they could become something else entirely.

Lauren:
That actually ties into my next question. You’ve also worked with shaped canvases. What inspired you to move away from the traditional rectangle?

Daniel:
That came from a very specific story. A friend of mine was staying with me for a couple of weeks. She’s very proactive; she participates in a lot of sports, and I showed her a sketch. I thought she could have a very radical opinion on this. So, I asked, “Roxy, how would you cut this image?” And without hesitation, she cut it diagonally.

I would never have thought to do that. But it made me realize the drawing itself suggested that cut to her.

Lauren:
Like the movement of the drawing pushed her to divide it in that way.

Daniel:
Exactly. So for me, the conversations around the work are just as important as the materials. It’s not only my work anymore—it belongs to that exchange. I’ve learned to embrace those moments, because both people and materials can “speak” to the work.

Lauren:
And then you’ve also made work that comes off the wall, almost extending into the space. How did that idea emerge?

Daniel:
That happened by accident. I had some canvases in my living room, and one of them slipped - the floor is quite slippery - and it leaned in this unusual position. It made me think: What if the painting could move into the space like that?

Lauren:
Like it was asking you, “Can I move?” (laughs)

Daniel:
(laughs) Yes! That’s how it felt. And it brought me back to this idea of self-referencing - the way works can speak to each other, or even to their own history, when you shift their position. It’s about putting your ideas into a different space and then learning from how they react.

Lauren:
I love that.

Daniel:
That’s really how it came about.

“When I make art, I find my own space. When I’m making art, it becomes a space I create for myself. It’s mine. So yes, belonging is at the heart of it.”

“Ideas are flying around my head, and I let them move freely. Sometimes I catch one, sometimes I let it go.”

Where the Wind Takes Us opens on the 15th October at Fitzrovia Gallery