Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce Enrique Martínez Celaya’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, Empires: Sea and Empires: Land. This exhibition, in two parts, comprises an interconnected group of new works that are revealed, hidden, or undermined by each other to create an experience that is simultaneously visceral and elusive.
Working in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, needlepoint and installation, as well as poetry and other writing, Martínez Celaya has created a new body of work characterized by the allusive complexity, emotional presence and intellectual rigor that he has developed over the past two decades. He blends reality, fantasy and memory to create a world that is both semi-autobiographical and resonantly universal. His visual language approaches aspects of experience often addressed through literature, religion and philosophy such as the individual search for authenticity and belonging, the limitations of self-knowledge, the tension between possibility and regret, and the consequences of a stunted inner life. The cumulative result explores the dynamics of will as we navigate a world that is often resistant to our strivings and regrets.