| BIOGRAPHY |
Enrique Martínez Celaya uses painting, sculpture, photography, and writing to examine time, subjectivity, memory, and representation, usually at the intersection of the domestic and the epic. He takes his subject matter from a wide range of sources, including Nordic poetry, samurai mores, quantum physics, the emotional mechanisms of kitsch, analytic and continental philosophy, Latin American literature, and everyday life. Though some cite his exhibitions as invoking traditions of figuration and narration, or as primarily intellectual in aim, Martínez Celaya rejects these claims. His projects, which are rarely in the context of group exhibitions, frequently take the form of multi-disciplinary environments installed at museums and galleries, as well as at less conventional venues like the Berliner Philharmonie and the Church of Saint John the Divine in New York. Martínez Celaya's work has been shown in many international institutions and is represented in twenty-seven museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig, Germany. He has received the National Artist Award from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the California Community Foundation Fellowship, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for Visual Arts, and the Young Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was also honored as the second Presidential Professor in the history of the University of Nebraska, and taught as a tenured professor in the faculty of Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University.
In addition to his pursuits in the visual arts, Martínez Celaya is the author of a collection of critical writings and interviews, as well as two books of poetry. He is also the editor of a selection of poems by Charles Baudelaire and an anthology of aesthetics. He has published four scientific papers on superconductivity and lasers, and is the inventor of several devices and of an often-cited patent. He lectures on topics ranging from literature to the relationship between art and science at many international forums, including the American Academy of Berlin, the Aspen Institute, and the Contemporary Art Society in London. Through a series of social enterprises conjointly named Whale & Star, Martínez Celaya has built an internationally recognized imprint that publishes books about art, poetry, art practice, and critical theory. He facilitates public lectures at his studio by art historians, critics, and philosophers, and helps provide educational opportunities for children as well as other artists.
Enrique Martínez Celaya was born in Habana, Cuba. He migrated to Spain with his family, then moved to Puerto Rico, where he initiated his formal training as an apprentice to a painter. In high school he pursued his childhood interest in science, winning fourteen science prizes, including first prize in the Department of Energy’s National Science Fair for a laser communication system. In addition to his work in art and science, he wrote poetry and essays, the latter influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings would exert an abiding force on his work throughout his career. He studied Applied Physics at Cornell University, and, supported by a fellowship from the Brookhaven National Laboratory, pursued a Ph.D. in Quantum Electronics at the University of California, Berkeley. He ultimately decided to pursue a career in art rather than science, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine. He received a Regents Fellowship to study at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts with the department's highest distinction. Martínez Celaya works in Miami and lives in Gulf Stream, Florida.