Wright Auction

A former physicist, Enrique Martínez Celaya is a multi-faceted artist, author, and educator who currently teaches at the University of Southern California. Born in Cuba and raised in Spain and Puerto Rico, he took up painting at the young age of 12 and proceeded on a course that led him to study quantum electronics at the University of California, Berkeley, before choosing to dedicate more time to his art practice. Celaya, whose most recent works include a floor-to-ceiling, site-specific painting at the Huntington Museum and Botanical Gardens, insists that his scientific background informs his work as a visual artist: “Quite often in the arts, people focus on the objects of the dynamic,” he says, "But I’m particularly interested in the forces at play in the dynamic. What are the things that are pushing against each other? And what are the consequences of that?” Works by Celaya are held in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.