Adrian Sutton is delighted to present this virtual exhibition of a single artwork by Cuban-born artist Enrique Martínez Celaya. It is the inaugural exhibition for VSPACE.
This artwork has personal resonance for Martínez Celaya. The artist spent his early years in Cuba before his family relocated to Spain and later Puerto Rico. Based on the shore of the small town of Playa Caimito in Cuba where Martínez Celaya spent time as a child, The Song of Claims depicts the place where the artist’s grandfather’s house once stood before it was lost to the sea in a hurricane.
Of the artwork, Martínez Celaya says: “the disappearance of the house echoes the disappearance of most traces of my family on the island.” The flutter of the birds and butterflies activate the still air and bring life back to this once inhabited part of the coast. The artist’s gestural use of paint mirrors the movement of the birds and the butterflies, and this deftness contrasts with the heavy, earthy tones of the background, suggesting changeability.
“This particular painting is a struggle with traces and impossibilities,” Martínez Celaya adds.
About the Artist:
Enrique Martínez Celaya is an artist, author, and former scientist. He is Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts at the University of Southern California and a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College. He has authored books and articles on art, poetry, philosophy, and physics.
Martínez Celaya’s work spans a wide range of materials and media, including painting, sculpture, and installation. Recurring themes include youth, isolation, the vastness of nature, and the sublime, while metaphorical and psychological landscapes often feature.
Martínez Celaya has exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His work can be found in public collections in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Portland Art Museum, OR; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Denver Art Museum, CO; Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Forthcoming exhibitions include Enrique Martínez Celaya at the Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Enrique Martínez Celaya at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (2022) and Enrique Martínez Celaya at the Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ (2023).
Enrique Martínez Celaya
The Song of Claims, 2020
Oil and wax on canvas
92 x 118 in / 233.7 x 299.7 cms
