Description |
Vija Celmin' magnificent artworks testify to her undying fascination with the world around her - whether the commonplace objects in her studio; her childhood memories of wartorn Latvia; the natural landscapes of her adpoted California: or the pebbles beneath her feet. Primarily a painter of still-life and landscape, Celmins is associated with 1960s pop art, and often uses photographs as soiyrce material to create her signature 'impossible images', such as just-fired revolvers or exploding airplanes. Temporarily abandoning painting in the 1970s, Celmins turned her attention to drawing exquiste graphite seascapes and other vast natural landscapes. The artist has described her signature works, such as the night skies she began in the 1980s, as 'unbound spaces...wrestled' into two dimensions. Here as with her later spider webs, Celmins blurs the boundaries of photography, painting, printmaking and drawing. She works not so much in a series as in compulsively repaeted images, each of which, for the artist, has a 'different tone...a different meaning'. |