The stages of Enrique Martinez Celaya

Young Chang

Physics and quantum electronics didn’t do much for Enrique Martinez

Celaya outside the laboratory door.

The artist still had questions about the past, mortality, time, the

power of a glance. So despite his fascination with the clarity of

science, which he studied at Cornell University and UC Berkeley, he

created art to find answers. He approached his work philosophically,

because philosophical is how the 37-year-old artist has always been.

The result, as Celaya puts it, is art with a purpose instead of art

for decoration.

His one-man exhibit of paintings, sculptures and photography opens

today at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach. It will remain

through Feb. 3. The title of each piece comes from the Cuban-born, Los

Angeles resident’s own poetry. A common theme in the collection is loss

and its transcendence, a concept that becomes understandable once you

stand before his, at times, painful and pensive expressions of memory.

But ask him to explain the meaning or purpose behind a specific work,

and he, without sounding deliberately cryptic, will hold back an answer.

“I always think explanations don’t mean anything,” said Celaya, who

considers himself a painter first despite the different genres he works

in. “That’s why I usually just talk about the context [of the work].”

The exhibit is organized chronologically. The first set of pieces is

titled “Dialectic of Resistance” and was done in 1992 and 1993. At the

time, Celaya was learning about Zen Buddhism and wanting his paintings to

be empty, or clear of color, which explains why everything is black. The

oldest piece, titled “La Otra (Prision),” is done in oil and wax and is

completely black except for a rim of white Christmas lights draped around

the borders. In the center of the painting is a small outline of a bird

in darker black.

Celaya said he used lights to make the painting more “physical.”

Further into the museum’s exhibit, Celaya’s second stage -- “The

Question of the Object” -- is combined with his third stage: “A

Philosophy of Displacement.”

One piece from this room is titled “Stone Wall.” The white painting

(there is color now) shows the legs of a boy or girl -- even Celaya is

ambiguous about the gender -- in a kneeling position that communicates

everything from surrender or prayer to an intimation of something sexual.

A pretty pink rose blooms in the center of the canvas and, if you look

close enough, older versions of the piece still lurk in streams of

dripped paint.

“All the history of the painting seems OK to be there,” Celaya said.

Irene Hoffman, curator at the museum, said that the artist is

concerned with more than the end product of his efforts.

“There is so much layering of imagery,” she said. “He’s interested in

the process of exploration and discovery.”

One of Celaya’s third-stage pieces, titled “The King’s Shelter,”

clearly shows the stuff of which it was made. It’s more than half of a

very slender arm cast from his wife’s limb molded with polyester, resin,

leaves and dirt.

“It’s such a physical object and at the same time, such an ephemeral

object. It’s what your arm is going to become,” Celaya said of the

materials he used.

The fourth stage is called “A Language of Traces” and is laden with

displaced or decapitated heads and hummingbirds. In “Quiet Night,” Celaya

combines the two -- a head with blood-like smudges of red on the lower

half of the face is being pecked at by two beautiful, precisely-drawn,

white hummingbirds.

The eyes of the two birds are dark, clear dots while the face remains

mysterious, without a clear outline of any facial features.

“I wanted to give a sense of consciousness to [the birds],” Celaya

said. “It’s a play of consciousness and displacement.”

The last room, exhibiting the works from a stage titled “Self and

Other,” show a change in Celaya’s use of setting. Until this recent

stage, begun in 2000, the artist had created paintings where the painting

was the world. But in the past two years, he has made the paintings part

of a world, accompanied by other works.

“This was a huge, philosophical change for me,” he said.

A key piece in this room is a tar, feather, wood, metal and mirror

sculpture titled “Coming Home.” The figures are of an elk and a boy.

Celaya said he uses tar and feathers because the materials harbor a

history of humiliation.

“I like to start in the skin of humiliation,” he said. “It’s below

humbleness. It’s a dark place in which to come out of.”

FYI

WHAT: Enriquez Martinez Celaya

WHEN: Today through Feb. 3. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday

through Sunday.

WHERE: Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport

Beach

COST: Museum admission is $5 for adults, $4 for students and seniors

and free for children younger than 16.

CALL: (949) 759-1122