Artist # 14

Vija Celmins born in 1938 in Latvia. Immigrated to the US at the age of 10. She earned a BFA from the John Heppens Institute in Indianapolis. Celmins uses a wide variety of mediums in her work such as oil paints, charcoal and print making. Her early works depict renditions of things in nature, they were often copied from a photograph. But in her work there was no point of reference, horizon, or depth to them, she used blacks whites and grays for the colors. Celmins likes to take time on the details in her work and also likes to depict the elegance of imperfection and will spend months on one piece. Her most recent series is a series of spider web paintings. She takes care to show the delicateness and the translucent qualities of the webs. She puts great emphasis on detail.