Celia Gerard
Campo, 2010
charcoal, graphite, and casein on paper
38 x 38 inches 43 x 43 inches framed
From Sears Peyton Gallery
“…In the afternoon, full of the sense that there was everything to be gained by leaving my winter-imposed solitude and seeking out the work of others–and work by living humans, not museum pieces–I drove down to Manhattan. Braving the icy wind off the Hudson and the sense that I don’t know anything about art, I walked around the art galleries of Chelsea. I came to a full stop at the show “Regions of Unlikeness” by the artist Celia Gerard at the Sears Peyton Gallery. Gerard’s abstract, geometical works in black and white have the power of making a viewer stay. “It’s amazing how they unfold,” said my friend, and I agreed. The triangles, spheres, and cones open into landscapes and unknown worlds in deep space. What is really uncanny about the works is that they unfold the viewer, waking up the energies in the body and opening the mind and heart. I felt like I could see and feel the ongoing search in the work, and it had the effect of calling to search along with the artist. Gerard’s work woke me up, yet made me feel very concentrated and still, like looking inside a vast crystal or up at a mountain, or inside myself. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia for places I have never travelled, a longing for a quality or state that is still unknown yet essential…home.
“I want to unfold/ I don’t want to stay folded anywhere/ Because where I am folded,/ There I am a lie….” These lines by Rilke echoed through my head as I drove home from Manhattan last night, and this morning when I woke.”
—Tracy Cochran “Regions of Unlikeness” @The Editors blog.
(via parabola-magazine)
