D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 the art of living Sabina Wong-Sutch meets artist, former professor and mentor, Enrique Martínez Celaya, a successful and refreshingly human, tender and intelligent artist on a mission to remind us all of the priorities in life. Images courtesy of Enrique Martínez Celaya After artist Enrique Martínez Celaya decided to leave a promising career of quantum physics in the 1980s, he spent two years eking out a living by selling some of his paintings in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. One day a passer-by asked to purchase not a painting, but his sketchbook, and desperate for the money, Martínez Celaya had but little choice. A serendipitous meeting at a recent reception brought the two together again. Martínez Celaya asked if he could buy his sketchbook back for "any sum of money" from this man. "Sorry," came the buyer's reply, he simply loved the work and had come to develop a passionate affinity with it: the signature Martínez Celaya spell had been cast. Cuban born Enrique Martínez Celaya is today one of the most celebrated young artists in America. Barely 40 years old, he is eagerly collected by the likes of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His works are in the private collections of art world influentials like Dieter Rosenkranz, the German industrialist, and Vicki Reynolds, the Mayor of Beverly Hills. In 1998 he won the prestigious "Art Here And Now Award" from the Los Angeles County Museum and his shows are always sell-outs, with an enviable international waiting list of collectors and private commissioners. Enrique Martínez Celaya was born in Palos, Cuba, the eldest of three boys. When he was eight, the Martínez Celaya family moved to Madrid to escape the brutalities of the Castro regime. There the family lived in utmost poverty, and as Martínez Celaya recalls, "We were so poor we all lived in one room, and there was not even a bathtub." At age 12, the family relocated to Puerto Rico, his last stop before he would move to America. In Puerto Rico, Martínez Celaya was apprenticed to the Spanish painter, Mayol, where he learned the classical methods of painting. Academically, he began to show his genius in physics and in the arts. "There was turmoil in my life so I used art in pretty much the same way as I use it now: how to understand things better. My work at the time was very messy, and really reflected the grossness of my life at the time. In contrast, I loved physics because it was so clean and mathematical, and it was a way for me to dream of a life different from the life that I was living." When he was 14 years old, the young prodigy began working for the department of energy, and when he was 15 Martínez Celaya applied for a patent in laser technology. As a high school valedictorian, Martínez Celaya left Puerto Rico for Cornell University in New York where he won a further scholarship to the Physics PhD program at University of California, Berkeley. However, he abandoned the program when he was 21, realising that this "art thing" as he fondly calls, was no longer a whimsical desire, but a life calling. He took several years off in San Francisco (when he fatefully sold his sketch pad), and then went on to earn yet another scholarship to complete his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1994 to May 2003 he was a member of the Pomona College art department faculty, teaching painting.
Martínez Celaya's medium is mainly oil paints, although he frequently uses feathers, flowers, tar and even hair on his canvas surfaces, to create a unique surface teeming with a tangible sense of history and time. The Buddhist words, "Keep your actions faithful" are inscribed upon any studio wall that Enrique Martínez Celaya occupies. This preoccupation with honesty and truthfulness in art has been a guiding light for his work for as long as he can remember. "I want my art to clarify things for me. When I see my art, I want to get charged by it and reminded by it how I should live." Indeed, when confronted by one of Martínez Celaya's works, which tend to be large (his canvases are usually at least 5 x 6 ft), the viewer often feels a little naked, as if Martínez Celaya's soulful compositions are peeling away the superficial, and forging a path directly into the inner soul and connecting with some lost chords of memories past: of happiness, hope, and regret. The beauty of the compositions is undeniable, as is the awesome passion that emanates from the canvas. "I have come to realize over the years that what I want to do with my work is create a philosophical system, a way to There was turmoil in my life so I used art in pretty much the same way as I use it now: how to understand things better
see life with more clarity. A way in which to process the past, inspect the present, and gain a few pointers to the future: a way to find out who the "am" is, in "I am". Life goes by very fast, and I suspect that I am missing out on what I need to pay attention to. Art is my way to slow things down and focus on what may be important. Making art is a journey that maps out my inward thoughts and is manifested outwardly in my painting." The exile from Cuba as a child, and the constant moving thereafter had created a need to formulate a "life system", and indeed when asked if he has ever painted a painting just for the sake of making something "pretty to decorate a wall," Enrique forcefully replies, "No! It has never even occurred to me to do that. When I see my own work I want to be constantly challenged by it." His compositions are what he describes as "sparse and introspective" and often deal with the notion of memory. There tend to be no specifics in geography or time in his compositions. Are the scene-scapes indoors, perceived, dreamed? It is this ambiguity that emphasizes the feeling of nostalgia and memory in his paintings: memories are often unwilling to give you specifics. And it is this too, that allows When I see my own artwork I want to be constantly challenged by it
Martínez Celaya's artwork to transcend cultures and geographical differences. "Even though the embodiment of my artwork may be foreign to some, there's a connection to be made regarding the questions of life, joy, regret, death, hope, as these notions aren't culturally specific. I am very interested in work that can operate outside of cultural frameworks. And I say this with full awareness of those who argue that art can only be decoded within certain cultural environments." Martínez Celaya reads voracious amounts of philosophy and poetry and has in fact published poetry of his own. His publishing house, Whale and Star, has published "Guide", a dialogue between an artist and art critic which may one day be made into a film. He keeps correspondence not so much with contemporaries in the art world, but with poets and philosophers, such as the late Allen Ginsberg, and Roald Hoffmann, the 1981 Nobel Prize chemist and poet. Poetry is very important to Martínez Celaya's work, and often he is inspired by poems when creating a new 'cycle' of works. Does this whirring mind ever turn off? "Rarely! I am always thinking and that really is too bad. A typical work day starts at 7:45 am and ends at around 7:00 pm when I go home. But even then I don't entirely switch off, even on weekends." With a pause he adds, "I guess I turn off when I'm painting. When I am painting that is when I can meditate, otherwise, my brain is constantly in motion." In the last few years, many life-changing events have happened in Martínez Celaya's life. Namely, his wife Alexandra and he had their first daughter, Gabriela, two years ago, and then their son Sebastían just arrived earlier this year. "The birth of Gabriela re-emphasized things that were always part of my work. My preoccupation with time and memory became much more severe when I realized that my time with Gabriela was very limited. She is growing up so quickly and one day, one of us is going to die. I have never felt so concretely that every moment counts." When asked if he can name his fondest memory, Martínez Celaya breaks into a nearly embarrassed smile and describes a painting session recently shared with his daughter: "I was crouched over trying to mix a colour, when Gabriela came over and pat me on the shoulder and complimented, Good job Da Da. The moment was so beautiful and tender." In her eyes, Enrique Martínez Celaya is just her dad, which is essentially who Martínez Celaya is: a normal guy who in his own words wants to "make a living, and be liked." He reminds me: "You must always remember that you cannot measure a man by the ruler of the artist." Enrique Martínez Celaya currently lives and works in Los Angeles.