Vija Celmins

the long version

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.