Next week, the Baldwin Gallery in Aspen opens a new show titled A Third of the Night. Cuban-born, LA-based Enrique Martínez Celaya is the artist behind the exhibition. The showcase features twelve of his paintings and one sculpture. It opens this Friday, February 12, 2021 and will be on view until March 14th.
Going to Aspen is like a homecoming for the artist who is a fixture in the Aspen arts scene. He has been involved in the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. He has also had exhibitions at the Baldwin Gallery in the past.
Inspired by the Book of Revelations, A Third of the Night explores the concepts of loss and uncertainty. It also expresses an exilic longing for home. The artists took the name of the show from a passage in the biblical text. It reads “a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.” Martinez Celaya found the notion of being without light interesting. “That was interesting to me. The aspect of darkness and what it means when you no longer have light for a period, sort of the mystery and confusion of that.”
Martínez Celaya was born in Palos, Nueva Pas Cuba. His family first relocated to Spain when he was eight. Then, at the age of eleven, the artist’s family moved to Puerto Rico. He graduated from Cornell University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics and a minor in Electrical Engineering. Later, he earned a Master’s of Science in Quantum Electronics. He patented several laser devices before he received training in art. In 1994, he graduated with highest honors from the M.F.A. program at the University of California.
Link to the original article
