Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Although born in Latvia, Vija Celmins has deep Hoosier connections. She moved with her family to Indiana at the age of ten and studied at the John Herron Art Institute. Although initially drawn to Abstract Expressionism, she turned her attention to photorealism and began working from photographs of the ocean, sky, and desert. Remarkable for their trompe l’oeil illusions, Celmins’s images are nonetheless simple in their compositions. To create this celestial image (the first example by the artist in our collection), she slowly roughened a large copperplate to produce a solid, velvety black background and then selectively polished areas for subtle tonal effects. The picture that emerged from the darkness reveals surprising depth and illumination.