Enrique Martínez Celaya

b.1964 in Havana, Cuba; lives in Los Angeles, CA


Enrique Martínez Celaya uses landscapes and figures to explore a metaphysical world. Raised in Spain and Puerto Rico, he began his formal training as an apprentice to a painter at the age of twelve and developed an enduring interest in writing and philosophy in the turbulent Puerto Rican cultural and political environment of the 1970s. He initially studied physics and quantum electronics, going on to earn his MFA. Today he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints, which are collected and exhibited around the world.

During his residency at Tamarind, he created the 2014 Collectors Club print along with several other editions exemplary of his interest in the relationship between one’s existence in the present and the past.

Martínez Celaya’s work can be found in permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden; and the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig, Germany, among others. He has received numerous honors including National Artist Award from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Cecil and Ida Green Honors Chair, California Community Foundation Fellowship, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for Visual Arts, Knight Foundation Grant, and Young Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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