“The next-to-last day of summer, Tuesday, September 20, a warm, humid after- noon, the sun bearing down from a bright sky. At the end of the lunch hour people stream along Broadway, most moving quickly and with purpose despite the heat, oth- ers in slower motion on their way seemingly nowhere in particular. A block over it’s quieter, almost calm. Above the street in a cool, orderly studio there is a sense of being both near and far — far from city noise and the earthbound, near to a stillness, a center of gravity, and suspense. The works on the walls elicit a similar sensation, small-format paintings of the ocean, a half dozen of them hung on an invisible horizon, their palettes overcast in various shades of gray, gray-blue, and one a hazy brownish black. Larger paintings of the night sky occupy most of a facing wall, pinpoints of starlight poking through otherwise impenetrable slabs of deep space, ivory blacks mixed with burnt umbers and ultramarine blues. The oceans are painterly, with traces of brushwork, but the same cannot be said of the night skies. This difference may account for the distance between the sea and the heavens, between what may be accessed and what can only be imagined, each with its own depths. The ocean paintings include neither shore nor horizon. This is not the ocean but its surface, and by looking, we are in it. The night sky, whether seen with the naked eye or drawn closer with a telescope, is always be- yond. And within it, what is actually seen? The ocean and the sky both serve to remind us that the limits of a painting are like the limits of a world. They inevitably make us feel small, even vulnerable at times, though often filled with wonder.” - #BobNickas on #VijaCelmins – in the new monograph from @matthewmarksgallery
