Enrique Martinez Celaya, artist and physicist

Enrique will address his upcoming exhibitions "Empires" at both locations of the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York- boats, sea, houses, children- may be misunderstood as a reference to exile. The truth is more complicated.

For example, how does one describe not the separation of oneself from the old country but from things as they are? From the world as it is? Is the solitary nature of self a denial of the expansiveness of being or a confirmation of the delusion of language - of the way we have spoken to ourselves? What language can be used to describe homesickness not as longing for what was left behind, but for what was unspoken, or what fell between the cracks of the spoken?

A project like Empires emerges from questions like those, and to remain open to where the questions take me, I try to avoid simplistic readings and conventional interpretations, particularly those that seem to come easily or that respond to pre-packaged thinking. I also resist understanding the work through a particular instance-say a look or a strategy- knowing these could change. For example, I tend to use simple compositions and quasi-archetypal images, but neither defines the work, and chances always are they will not appear in my next project. If there is a definition of the work, it is to be found in my refusal to let what I am doing congeal into anything other than a search for understanding and meaning.

A reception will follow in Kim Gallery.