DECEMBER 2003 the art of living Sabina Wong-Sutch meets artist, former professor and mentor, Enrique Martínez Celaya, a successful and refreshingly human, tender and intelligent artist on a mission to remind us all of the priorities in life. Images courtesy of Enrique Martínez Celaya After artist Enrique Martínez Celaya decided to leave a as Martínez Celaya recalls, "We were so poor we all lived in promising career of quantum physics in the 1980s, he spent one room, and there was not even a bathtub." At age 12, the two years eking out a living by selling some of his paintings family relocated to Puerto Rico, his last stop before he would in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. One day a passer-by move to America. In Puerto Rico, Martínez Celaya was asked to purchase not a painting, but his sketchbook, and apprenticed to the Spanish painter, Mayol, where he learned desperate for the money, Martínez Celaya had but little the classical methods of painting. Academically, he began to choice. A serendipitous meeting at a recent reception brought show his genius in physics and in the arts. "There was tur- the two together again. Martínez Celaya asked if he could moil in my life so I used art in pretty much the same way as buy his sketchbook back for "any sum of money" from this I use it now: how to understand things better. My work at the man. "Sorry," came the buyer's reply, he simply loved the time was very messy, and really reflected the ‘grossness’ of work and had come to develop a passionate affinity with it: my life at the time. In contrast, I loved physics because it was the signature Martínez Celaya spell had been cast. so clean and mathematical, and it was a way for me to dream Cuban born Enrique Martínez Celaya is today one of the of a life different from the life that I was living." When he most celebrated young artists in America. Barely 40 years was 14 years old, the young prodigy began working for the old, he is eagerly collected by the likes of the Metropolitan department of energy, and when he was 15 Martínez Celaya Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, applied for a patent in laser technology. As a high school and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His works are valedictorian, Martínez Celaya left Puerto Rico for Cornell in the private collections of art world influentials like University in New York where he won a further scholarship Dieter Rosenkranz, the German industrialist, and Vicki to the Physics PhD program at University of California, Reynolds, the Mayor of Beverly Hills. In 1998 he won the Berkeley. However, he abandoned the program when he was prestigious "Art Here And Now Award" from the Los 21, realising that this "art thing" as he fondly calls, was no Angeles County Museum and his shows are always sell-outs, longer a whimsical desire, but a life calling. He took several with an enviable international waiting list of collectors and years off in San Francisco (when he fatefully sold his sketch private commissioners. pad), and then went on to earn yet another scholarship to Enrique Martínez Celaya was born in Palos, Cuba, the complete his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of eldest of three boys. When he was eight, the Martínez Celaya California, Santa Barbara. From 1994 to May 2003 he was a family moved to Madrid to escape the brutalities of the member of the Pomona College art department faculty, Castro regime. There the family lived in utmost poverty, and teaching painting. Martínez Celaya's medium is mainly oil paints, although he There was turmoil in my life so I used art frequently uses feathers, flowers, tar and even hair on his canvas surfaces, to create a unique surface teeming with a in pretty much the same way as I use it tangible sense of history and time. now: how to understand things better The Buddhist words, "Keep your actions faithful" are inscribed upon any studio wall that Enrique Martínez Celaya occupies. This preoccupation with honesty and truthfulness in art has been a guiding light for his work for as long as he can remember. "I want my art to clarify things for me. When I see my art, I want to get charged by it and reminded by it how I should live." Indeed, when confronted by one of Martínez Celaya's works, which tend to be large (his canvases are usually at least 5 x 6 ft), the viewer often feels a little naked, as if Martínez Celaya's soulful compositions are peeling away the superficial, and forging a path directly into the inner soul and connecting with some lost chords of memories past: of happiness, hope, and regret. The beauty of the com- positions is undeniable, as is the awesome passion that emanates from the canvas. "I have come to realize over the years that what I want to do with my work is create a philosophical system, a way to see life with more clarity. A way in which to process the past, inspect the present, and gain a few pointers to the future: a way to find out who the "am" is, in "I am". Life goes by very fast, and I suspect that I am missing out on what I need to pay attention to. Art is my way to slow things down and focus on what may be important. Making art is a journey that maps out my inward thoughts and is manifested outwardly in my painting." The exile from Cuba as a child, and the constant moving thereafter had created a need to formulate a "life sys- tem", and indeed when asked if he has ever painted a painting just for the sake of making something "pretty to decorate a wall," Enrique forcefully replies, "No! It has never even occurred to me to do that. When I see my own work I want to be constantly challenged by it." His compositions are what he describes as "sparse and introspective" and often deal with the notion of memory. There tend to be no specifics in geography or time in his compositions. Are the scene-scapes indoors, perceived, When I see my own artwork dreamed? It is this ambiguity that emphasizes the feeling of nostalgia and memory in his paintings: memories are often I want to be constantly unwilling to give you specifics. And it is this too, that allows challenged by it Martínez Celaya's artwork to transcend cultures and geographical In the last few years, many life-changing events have hap- differences. "Even though the embodiment of my artwork pened in Martínez Celaya's life. Namely, his wife Alexandra may be foreign to some, there's a connection to be made and he had their first daughter, Gabriela, two years ago, and regarding the questions of life, joy, regret, death, hope, as then their son Sebastían just arrived earlier this year. "The these notions aren't culturally specific. I am very interested in birth of Gabriela re-emphasized things that were always part work that can operate outside of cultural frameworks. And I of my work. My preoccupation with time and memory say this with full awareness of those who argue that art can became much more severe when I realized that my time with only be decoded within certain cultural environments." Gabriela was very limited. She is growing up so quickly and Martínez Celaya reads voracious amounts of philosophy one day, one of us is going to die. I have never felt so con- and poetry and has in fact published poetry of his own. His cretely that every moment counts." When asked if he can publishing house, Whale and Star, has published "Guide", a name his fondest memory, Martínez Celaya breaks into a dialogue between an artist and art critic which may one day nearly embarrassed smile and describes a painting session be made into a film. He keeps correspondence not so much recently shared with his daughter: "I was crouched over trying with contemporaries in the art world, but with poets and to mix a colour, when Gabriela came over and pat me on the philosophers, such as the late Allen Ginsberg, and Roald shoulder and complimented, ‘Good job Da Da’. The moment Hoffmann, the 1981 Nobel Prize chemist and poet. Poetry is was so beautiful and tender." In her eyes, Enrique Martínez very important to Martínez Celaya's work, and often he is Celaya is just her dad, which is essentially who Martínez inspired by poems when creating a new 'cycle' of works. Celaya is: a normal guy who in his own words wants to Does this whirring mind ever turn off? "Rarely! I am "make a living, and be liked." He reminds me: "You must always thinking and that really is too bad. A typical work day always remember that you cannot measure a man by the ruler starts at 7:45 am and ends at around 7:00 pm when I go of the artist." home. But even then I don't entirely switch off, even on Enrique Martínez Celaya currently lives and works in Los Angeles. weekends." With a pause he adds, "I guess I turn off when I'm painting. When I am painting that is when I can meditate, otherwise, my brain is constantly in motion." .