January 18 - February 22, 2020
A solo exhibition featuring work by Enrique Martinez Celaya.
Since the early 1990s, Celaya has intellectually maneuvered between drawing, sculpture,
installation, and painting–all of which leads to a broad, philosophical exploration of the powerful part of reality
that is the possibility of coexistence between two contradictory or paradoxical things. His nuanced, psychologi-
cally charged, and symbolism-rich paintings and sculptures command viewers to reflect on the rendered ambigu-
ity. A statuesque crow avoiding one’s gaze, a man in a suit surrounded by unlit fireflies, and a mountain peak
reaching out to kiss the moon–all appropriately poetic, leaving viewers in their own intimate musings.
Martínez Celaya’s work stems from the personal and each is journaled extensively. In his own words, “…my work
has connections to real events and to memories, but it is not autobiographical in the sense that my life is not what
interests me. What I am after […] are the explorations of the ambiguous forces and memories always at play in our
move through life.” The Choir (The Way) (oil and wax on canvas, 2018), for instance, is more than merely a still life
of what might have been a familiar view of one of his grandfather’s caged passerines. The personal becomes
universal. A bird is cautiously perched on a twig against a bed of colorful blooms that hover over dark, troubled
waters. It is framed by a yellow vignette, suggesting a close yet restricted proximity between the subject and the
viewer. The simplest details transform the painting into an earthly scene, to which one can reflect on life in melod-
ic and melancholic silence.
Enrique Martínez Celaya is a Cuban born artist, author, and former scientist. His work has been exhibited in the
State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., and the Museum der
bildenden Künste Leipzig, among many others, as well as for institutions customarily outside of the art world,
including the Berliner Philharmonie, the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York, and the Doroth-
eenstadt Cemetery in Berlin. His work is held by major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm,
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, and the Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art, Hartford. He received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics and a minor in Electrical Engi-
neering from Cornell University, and a Master of Science with a specialization in Quantum Electronics from the
University of California, Berkeley. He published scientific papers on superconductivity and lasers, is the inventor
of several patented laser devices and completed all coursework for his doctorate and a significant part of his
dissertation before he decided to devote more time to art. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting &
Sculpture and earned an MFA with the department’s highest distinction from the University of California, Santa
Barbara. He is an Artist Advisor at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. On top of his stag-
gering accomplishments, Martínez Celaya is the first person to hold the position of Provost Professor of Human-
ities and Arts at the University of Southern California.
Opening: January 18, 2020 | 6–8 pm
Artist talk: January 19, 2020 | 1–2 pm
Book signing
3465 B West Alabama
Houston, 77027 Texas
832–740-4288
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