Vija Celmins

By Vija Celmins

This volume catalogs Vija Celmins' (born 1938) first new body of work since 2010, featuring paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures.

The Latvian-born, New York-based artist has been rendering nature imagery from black-and-white photographic sources since the 1960s, exploring the same subjects repeatedly in paintings, drawings and prints. Here, she focuses on two motifs she has employed for several decades: the ocean's surface and the night sky. The imagery, however, is not her foremost concern: "The recognizable image is just one element to consider. The paintings seem more a record of my grappling with how to transform that image into a painting and make it alive." This process can be seen in A Painting in Six Parts (1986-87/2012-16), a group of six oil paintings based on a photograph she took 50 years ago from a pier in Venice, California.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1944929134
• ISBN13: 9781944929138
• Release Date: March 2018
• Publisher: Matthew Marks Gallery
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 9.3" x 10.4"