My work comes intuitively to me.
I experiment with paint and other materials.
I might have a particular process in mind like scraping off, washing back or sanding down several layers
so all the stages of a work are shown ... or ...
I might go exploring an unknown path.
Either way, the final end result is always a surprise.
Like with my Orbies, the clay vessels, wrapped with copper, salt, seaweed,...only reveal their final skin
after their firing.
My work is about expressing life rather than illustrating. When a piece feels alive that's when it's ready to let go.
Murielle Celis is a Belgian artist living in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin.
She studied at the well-known Saint Lucas Higher Institute for Visual Arts in Ghent where she was awarded degrees in printmaking and painting.
During her degree in painting she evolved from figurative towards non-objective art. With her increasing involvement in Eastern philosophy and meditation her eye turned inwards for inspiration and a whole range of non-representational art opened up.
Since 1989 she participated in group exhibitions in Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia and Canada and had solo shows in Belgium and Ireland.
She moved to Ireland in 1995. Murielle worked with several international artists amongst others the Belgian artist Hugo De Leener, the Russian painter Boris Schapowalov, the Hungarian artist Peter Foldi and Ciaran Lennon here in Ireland.
Murielle was part of the Sunlight Studios and the Renegade Art Studios, based in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin.
She studied at the well-known Saint Lucas Higher Institute for Visual Arts in Ghent where she was awarded degrees in printmaking and painting.
During her degree in painting she evolved from figurative towards non-objective art. With her increasing involvement in Eastern philosophy and meditation her eye turned inwards for inspiration and a whole range of non-representational art opened up.
Since 1989 she participated in group exhibitions in Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia and Canada and had solo shows in Belgium and Ireland.
She moved to Ireland in 1995. Murielle worked with several international artists amongst others the Belgian artist Hugo De Leener, the Russian painter Boris Schapowalov, the Hungarian artist Peter Foldi and Ciaran Lennon here in Ireland.
Murielle was part of the Sunlight Studios and the Renegade Art Studios, based in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin.
EDUCATION
1990 Degree Printmaking, St. Lucas, Higher Institute for Visual Arts, Ghent, Belgium
1993 Degree Painting (distinction), St. Lucas, Higher Institute for Visual Arts, Gent, Belgium
1990 Degree Printmaking, St. Lucas, Higher Institute for Visual Arts, Ghent, Belgium
1993 Degree Painting (distinction), St. Lucas, Higher Institute for Visual Arts, Gent, Belgium
Texts
Her work is small-scale and intimate, intuitive and serene. Her pure colour abstractions provide a calming balance in the show to their physical and active engagements with
the world at large. Murielle’s gaze is much more inward. Her many years of exploring a personal spiritual path travelling east towards India and then back again have left their mark. There is a gentle and subtle awareness of how inner energies work and of how they manifest externally. Her reach into paint comes intuitively and directly from her own life’s experiences and memories but it is channelled through a matured and very refined artistic sensibility.
Murielle works primarily in acrylics. Much lighter than oils, it is a medium most suited to her method of working; the constant layering and staining, removing some elements, retaining others, putting pressure on a dry surface to yield up a particular hue or a little gem of a detail, only to be covered again with perhaps a different band of colour. The process is repeated over and again until she is satisfied that the whole painting is complete.
Murielle paints as a diviner might look for gold, sieving through the dross, attuning her eye and all her concentration so as not to miss that little nugget if and when it appears.
Maura Murtagh (Artist).
----------
Murielle Celis’s paintings contain a veiled message - a mantra, if you will. Throughout the ages, ambiguous expressions have been used in freeing the mind from earthly limitations. The particular inspiration for Celis’s work in it will get you in the end is a series of Irish proverbs. Celis’s challenge, however, is twofold – not only is she interested in capturing the feelings behind these sayings, she wishes to translate the reactions into visual form. The result are beautifully abstract works like Is Binn e Beul ‘nna Thosd (A silent mouth is melodic). With this resonant vibrating piece, Celis managed to physically capture the tension between silence and humankind’s universal longing for communication.
As with Is Binn e Beul ‘nna Thosd, an important element in Celis’s work appears to be a careful balance between the physicality and the subject matter of the paintings themselves. In Dall Air li ni Breitheamh Fior (A blind man is not a true judge of colours), a dimpled and abraded surface directly references the proverb in Braille form. Yet the sheer power of the painting’s colour demands that it be visually appreciated, thus turning the framework on its head. So the question remains, what does one make of a painting that is the visual representation of a literary concept about the limits of perception? The answer is in the question, of course. The rest is a subtle combination of emotive power, the essence of colour, and the need for quiet contemplation.
Janet Naclia
---------
...But there are no hard edges in Celis' work, and perhaps her perspective is similar to the phrase
"Silence is golden". We are reminded that what is most precious, or beautiful, is often contained within a period of reflection.
Noelle Harrison
-----------
The circle, square and triangle are now known and recognised as universal symbols, fundamentals to the visual language of geometric abstraction.
Here, whether we encounter them tangibly in the geometric solid of Sundial or more elusively like ghostly presences in some works on paper
(I am thinking especially of the series About Circle, Square and Triangle) their quiet energy emanates. We may see these configurations as simple
shapes and formal investigations or we may look further and find that they act on our senses in ways that cause to pause and contemplate, to consider
an essence that ultimately brings us back to ourselves.
Murielle Celis does not consciously seek such effects. She paints intuitively and in doing so give voice to an ’inner necessity’. But she is aware of how
a painting will always reflect the life of it’s maker, how in this way a work may evade the artists intentions or efforts to control so “It’s not necessarily
what you want it to be”. ...
In her search for an abstract purity Murielle Celis would be reluctant to impose any such fixed meanings on her art. Rather she continues to pursue
her own independent path, always with a preparedness and openness to go beyond, to reach the next stage upwards.
Marian Lovett
Her work is small-scale and intimate, intuitive and serene. Her pure colour abstractions provide a calming balance in the show to their physical and active engagements with
the world at large. Murielle’s gaze is much more inward. Her many years of exploring a personal spiritual path travelling east towards India and then back again have left their mark. There is a gentle and subtle awareness of how inner energies work and of how they manifest externally. Her reach into paint comes intuitively and directly from her own life’s experiences and memories but it is channelled through a matured and very refined artistic sensibility.
Murielle works primarily in acrylics. Much lighter than oils, it is a medium most suited to her method of working; the constant layering and staining, removing some elements, retaining others, putting pressure on a dry surface to yield up a particular hue or a little gem of a detail, only to be covered again with perhaps a different band of colour. The process is repeated over and again until she is satisfied that the whole painting is complete.
Murielle paints as a diviner might look for gold, sieving through the dross, attuning her eye and all her concentration so as not to miss that little nugget if and when it appears.
Maura Murtagh (Artist).
----------
Murielle Celis’s paintings contain a veiled message - a mantra, if you will. Throughout the ages, ambiguous expressions have been used in freeing the mind from earthly limitations. The particular inspiration for Celis’s work in it will get you in the end is a series of Irish proverbs. Celis’s challenge, however, is twofold – not only is she interested in capturing the feelings behind these sayings, she wishes to translate the reactions into visual form. The result are beautifully abstract works like Is Binn e Beul ‘nna Thosd (A silent mouth is melodic). With this resonant vibrating piece, Celis managed to physically capture the tension between silence and humankind’s universal longing for communication.
As with Is Binn e Beul ‘nna Thosd, an important element in Celis’s work appears to be a careful balance between the physicality and the subject matter of the paintings themselves. In Dall Air li ni Breitheamh Fior (A blind man is not a true judge of colours), a dimpled and abraded surface directly references the proverb in Braille form. Yet the sheer power of the painting’s colour demands that it be visually appreciated, thus turning the framework on its head. So the question remains, what does one make of a painting that is the visual representation of a literary concept about the limits of perception? The answer is in the question, of course. The rest is a subtle combination of emotive power, the essence of colour, and the need for quiet contemplation.
Janet Naclia
---------
...But there are no hard edges in Celis' work, and perhaps her perspective is similar to the phrase
"Silence is golden". We are reminded that what is most precious, or beautiful, is often contained within a period of reflection.
Noelle Harrison
-----------
The circle, square and triangle are now known and recognised as universal symbols, fundamentals to the visual language of geometric abstraction.
Here, whether we encounter them tangibly in the geometric solid of Sundial or more elusively like ghostly presences in some works on paper
(I am thinking especially of the series About Circle, Square and Triangle) their quiet energy emanates. We may see these configurations as simple
shapes and formal investigations or we may look further and find that they act on our senses in ways that cause to pause and contemplate, to consider
an essence that ultimately brings us back to ourselves.
Murielle Celis does not consciously seek such effects. She paints intuitively and in doing so give voice to an ’inner necessity’. But she is aware of how
a painting will always reflect the life of it’s maker, how in this way a work may evade the artists intentions or efforts to control so “It’s not necessarily
what you want it to be”. ...
In her search for an abstract purity Murielle Celis would be reluctant to impose any such fixed meanings on her art. Rather she continues to pursue
her own independent path, always with a preparedness and openness to go beyond, to reach the next stage upwards.
Marian Lovett