Painting that Capture Our ver-Changing Perception of ohood nrique Martínez Celaa ditill how the concept of “the o” change with judgement and time, jut a painting itelf i linked to material and hitor. DNVR — It’ hard to pin down what i happening in the frame of nrique Martínez Celaa’ painting. In The o: Witne and Marker, 2003–2018 at Roichon Galler, Martínez Celaa ditill how the concept of “the o” change with judgement and time, jut a painting itelf i linked to material and hitor. In hi exhiition ea, Martínez Celaa hare that when the o leave hi artwork for a time, the land or ea take hi place, a detail which encouraged me to conider what i at take in the artit’ image. Martínez Celaa’ painting are like wordle poem, inverting and twiting meaning in profound and plaful wa. In our converation, he identied a long lit of poet he read, among them Roert Frot. Frot’ rt commerciall pulihed ook of poem wa titled A o’ Will and, in 1942, he pulihed a collection titled A Witne Tree. Generall, the poem within A o’ Will explore a peron’ movement through an external world — how the landcape feel, mell, and ound — while A Witne Tree engage complex internal human drama. Frot decried the wing of a utter (“The Tuft of Flower”), the page in an open ook (“A Cloud hadow”), and the urface of water in the wind (“A Line-torm ong”) all a a “utter.” Rather than argue Frot i in need of a theauru, I would ugget it i the movement that evoke an image in the mind, rather than the actual thing moving. xtending the poiilitie of a enation i alo what interet Martínez Celaa, uch a when he preent one more creature that utter in “The Relic and the Pure” (2013– 2015), where a o ret on the ell of a ra rather than a raptor. A hint or a geture can hift everthing within Martínez Celaa’ frame. A oung o tretching from a ranch poee an impoil long toro in “The Prince” (2015). Hi ruer adolecent od, with one protruding houlder lade that end the k, conve an anxiet that extend eond what i literall depicted. In Frot’ A Witne Tree the wood doe not end; it mark and upport it pace rml like “an iron pine,” d epite the paage of time or mae a a product of it. The permanence of the tree a witne in Martínez Celaa’ painting i countered the ever-changing o — oth primar ignier in hi work. Capturing the viciitude of time i one of the wa in which Martínez Celaa create uncertaint. In “The Hol” (2009) and “The word” (2012) right color whiper from the edge of the canva, uried under darker pigment, like a memor. The owering eld perit in the fra of “The word,” eckoning the viewer to imagine it life efore it wa cut down and urned lack. When Frot decrie the land in “The Quet of the Purple- Fringed,” he note “the chill of the meadow underfoot” depite the un overhead. The reader can recall how it feel when oil covet the cool night air well into datime. Martínez Cela a’ corched land prickle while lumering, teaing u with the image of how the green plant’ limer tem previoul waed. Martínez Celaa’ nervou laer of paint mimic the lippage of time a the o pull wa from childhood in increment too minor to ee until the tranition i complete. In “The Wager” (2018) Martínez Celaa confeed painting the toro of the o everal dozen time, eeking the form that it “hould e,” not one that mimic a oung o in a photo, ut a od at an age oth eager and fearful. The meaning of Martínez Celaa’ image are not xed or immediatel clear. In thi wa, he a, “painting manifet the dout of the viewer a much a the artit.” It i imperative, he argue, to pre on thoe anxietie to engage people in art. nrique Martínez Celaa’ The o: Witne and Marker, 2003-2018 continue at Roichon Galler, (1740 Wazee treet, Denver) through March 9. Brown, Liz. "Enrique Martínez Celaya," Elle Decor. April 2017: pp. 70-72, illustrated. ART SHOW The image is simple—a bird in flight and The Remains, 2016, oil and wax a burst of black and orange flames—but on canvas. it lingers in complicated ways. There’s an electric jolt from the ball of fire, and then, as the eye takes in the desolate black field behind it, a haunting emptiness sets in. At once voluptuous and bleak, Enrique Martínez Celaya’s wall-size The Burn- ing (Mandelshtam) could technically be called a landscape painting—but it feels more like a premonition. You don’t know whether to be excited or scared. Martínez Celaya’s work—in addition to painting, he also creates sculptures and installations—draws on easily recogniz- able images and scenes, which the artist renders in ways that make them appear strange and uncanny: In The Guest, a colorfully dressed matador stands incon- gruously alone on a tree stump against a stark mountain range. In The Treasure of the Patient, a life-size bronze sculpture of a young boy inhabits a giant bird- cage; the holes cut out of his torso house the nests of five live Australian doves. “I am interested in creating certain experiences, certain scenes, and then undermining them,” Martínez Celaya says in his spacious studio in Los Ange- les’s Culver City, “so that the notion of representation—how trustworthy this image is—becomes unstable.” In recent years, he has created a series of paintings inspired by the singers Adele and Freddie Mercury, the artist Edvard Munch, and his own children. Although the faces are recognizable, Martínez Celaya doesn’t consider him- self a portraitist or even a figurative painter. “Mostly, I create the figures, objects, and landscapes in my work from memory. The work is really not about the figures,” he says. “They are references, points of entry more connected to issues of memory and representation and meta- phor.” Indeed, each face is partially a ENRIQUE MARTÍNEZ CELAYA reflection of himself. He works in what he calls environ- This Los Angeles–based ments, or cycles, creating multiple pieces painter and sculptor creates brooding simultaneously. He’s currently devel- works that are as oping one around the idea of “another enigmatic as they are compelling shore,” an investigation of arrivals and and beautiful. departures, for an upcoming show at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. He BY LIZ BROWN has other exhibitions lined up in Berlin, Stockholm, and Porto Cervo, Italy. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY, NEW YORK 70 ELLE DECOR ART SHOW LEFT: The Bloom, for the Wilderness, 2015, oil and wax on canvas. BELOW: The Invisible, 2015, bronze sculpture in metal basin with water. refrigeration system within an unmade often paints with tar, accounting for the The Savior, 2008, bronze. bronze bed, creating a thick layer of viscous density of his blacks, and Ryder white frost that seemed to take the place favored bitumen, a tar-like substance. of sheets and blankets. Ottmann also likens the spiritual “He has an encyclopedic curiosity, dimension in Martínez Celaya’s art to which is very rare these days,” says Klaus the way that Catholicism informed Yves Ottmann, who recently curated an exhi- Klein’s work and to how Mark Rothko bition at the Phillips Collection in Wash- drew from Jewish mysticism in his ington, D.C., which paired Martínez paintings. In terms of formal references, Celaya’s The First Kierkegaard with sev- Miami collector and philanthropist Jorge eral paintings by the American Romantic Pérez sees Martínez Celaya in the mold Albert Pinkham Ryder, who died in 1917. of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, but It’s tempting to draw a link between the While the two artists evoke a similar notes that it’s simply not possible to pin artist’s biography and the atmosphere of moodiness, it turns out there are other this artist down. “He is not static,” Pérez dislocation in his work. Born in Cuba in resonances as well: Martínez Celaya says. “He is always growing.” ◾ 1964, Martínez Celaya emigrated with his family to Spain when he was seven, The Empire, and then again to Puerto Rico when he 2015, oil and wax on canvas. was 13. But he is quick to cite influences beyond his transient childhood, such as his grandfather’s austere Catholicism, distinct from the flamboyant ritual so often associated with the religion, as well as the mystical tradition of Ameri- can authors like Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emer- son. His background in math and science, including doctoral training in quantum electronics, also contributes to the rigor- ous level of technical experimentation in his practice. For a room-size 2004 instal- lation titled Schneebett, he constructed a COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY, NEW YORK 72 ELLE DECOR March 19, 2017 Enrique Martinez Celaya The Gypsy Camp Jack Shainman Gallery New York, 513 West 20th Street Cuban-born and Los Angeles-based artist Enrique Martinez Celaya returns New York for his second solo exhibition with Jack Shainman Gallery. The paintings Martinez Celaya created in the last two years continue his quest for alternative realm through otherworldly and ephemeral depictions of humans and nature. Artspeak editor Osman Can Yerebakan interviewed the artist about The Gypsy Camp that will remain on view until April 22nd at the gallery’s 20th street location. Osman Can Yerebakan: In a previous interview, you talked about the influence of studio life in your work.