Clery, Daisy Janet Constance;
(2025)
Celmins’ Cycles: Measures of Painting after 1980.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
My project begins in 1980, when Latvian–American artist Vija Celmins made a definitive move from Los Angeles to New York. She had made her name on the west coast making intensely detailed drawings of wavering waves, sparkling stars and desiccating deserts – a self–described ‘dry world of graphite and pieces of charcoal.’ While drawing has not been central to her practice since the 1970s, critical reception of her work continues to emphasize the early experiments in graphite. I address this discursive miscalculation by arguing for her move back to the east coast as a move back to painting and specifically still life, a term I explore expansively throughout. Importantly, I insist that this return was not linear back rather convoluted and caught up in a cycle of intermedial transitions; Celmins herself has said her loop back to paint was ‘like an inchworm going from one thing to another.’ As I see it, shifts between painting and sculpture proved particularly productive; the centrality of painted sculpture in her practice has likewise been overlooked. I take care to consistently tease out the temporal dimension of these spatial adjustments: quite simply, time is of the essence. How does this second period operate? How are earlier works evoked? How are later works anticipated? How are personal and historical problems of painting approached? These are just some questions central to my study. Through close analysis of a small number of case studies, I consider how different measures of painting interact and how painting itself is a measure through which to calibrate Celmins’ later turn.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Celmins’ Cycles: Measures of Painting after 1980 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History of Art |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205864 |
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