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
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