Hi there. Lately I've been thinking about displacement and re-placement, or the changing of perspective. Vija Celmins places her viewer in proximity to details of nature that are often overlooked. Her work runs the gamut from pencil on paper to etchings to paintings, often presenting photorealistic renderings of spiders' webs and stretches of starry sky or rippled seawater. There are sculptures too: tiny replicas of rocks, that, when I saw them exhibited, were shown in the same case as the real rocks they were modeled after. They were indistinguishable. It was in front of that display that I felt the power of Celmins' work. It makes you press your nose to the glass, or step right up to the wall on which an image is displayed. You look for her hand in each all too convincing piece, and in doing so notice what you might not have when glancing past the real thing.
"It makes you press your nose to the glass, or step right up to the wall on which an image is displayed." That is the effect a true artist has. Beautiful.
"It makes you press your nose to the glass, or step right up to the wall on which an image is displayed." That is the effect a true artist has. Beautiful.