Artists’ statements research.

This was a new take for me. No story. Interesting.

Although I can see a story.

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2019/vija-celmins

Transcript:

Vija Celmins: I don’t think there was ever a point where I said, “I’m gonna be, you know, an artist.” No. It seeped in.

I was looking for something. I went to two paintings a day of all the objects I had in my studio. I ran through ’em like wildfire.

I started going through books and magazines and looking at images that maybe had something to do with my own remembrance of war. I had an early life that was quite traumatic, as everybody did who lived in Europe during World War II.

I try to use an image ’cause it attracts you to the painting. You know, you wanna go in the painting. But the painting is not a window. The painting has its own reality.

I used to call the image the skeleton, you know, on which I build a painting. It’s like taming an outside image for the inside. The painting often has a kind of an emotional quality to it—I mean, you could say it’s an expression—but I’m not interested in telling stories.

I like a lot of retinal activity, like little dots and smidges and waves that articulate the surface.

I often stop painting. But I’m always—in my head, I’m always thinking about paintings. I like the fluidity of the painting. And it can make incredible things, and terrible things, and things you want to keep. It can become anything.

Credits:

Editor: Stephanie Wuertz

Original Music: Austin Fisher

Artwork © Vija Celmins, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

Footage courtesy of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art