Celia Reisman Chartreuse Heaven, 2023 oil on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
Everywhere I go, close to home or further afield, I find potential subjects for my paintings.
Inspired by the interaction of residential architecture with natural forms, I am compelled to record these interactions, to make these observations stay put in paintings when they are ephemeral in life. The narrow spaces in between domestic residencies provide varied displays of shape and color that change from time of day and season to season. From my car I make observational drawings and, in my studio, combine the drawing with changes of color, light and perspective altering the known with the imagined. New forms develop that lead to that moment when there is tension between the hard silhouette of a garage and the graceful lines of a tree. My studio challenge is to orchestrate all the components so that they hold that tension. By working between boundaries of representation and abstraction, meaning is created by my choices to balance all the elements. In return, the paintings transform my daily world into one suspended in mystery and surprise.
"The paintings transform my daily world into one suspended in mystery and surprise."
CELIA REISMAN
1950
Born in Syracuse, NY
EDUCATION
1978
MFA, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT
1971
BFA, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
1971
Blossom Art Program, Kent State University, Kent, OH
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Chosen Places, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2022
Side Streets, Back Roads, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2020
Borderlands, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019
The Vermont Paintings, Big Town Gallery, Rochester, VT
2018
Endless Readings, Art Space, HACC Lancaster Campus, Lancaster, PA
2017
A Moment Noticed, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2016
Paintings & Their Studies, St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery, Rutherford, CA
2015
Recent Paintings, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2013
A Certain Slant – Paintings and Drawings, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Hidden Spaces, The Anne Reid ’72 Art Gallery, Princeton Day School, Princeton, NJ
2011
Paintings, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, New York, NY
2010
Paintings, Upper Jewett Exhibition Corridor, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Paintings, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2007
Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2006
Les Yeux du Monde, Charlottesville, VA
2004
Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2001
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY
Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2000
Fifteen Year Survey, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA
Tasis American School, Surrey, England
TEACHING
2020
Visiting Artist, Mt. Gretna School of Art, Mt. Gretna, PA
2019
Visiting Professor, Art New England, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
2013
Visiting Artist, Mt. Gretna School of Art, PA
2012
Visiting Professor in Painting, The International School for Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture, Montecastello di Vibio, Umbria, Italy [summer]
SELECTED AWARDS
2015
Borgo Finnochietto Residency, Buonconvento, Italy
2009
Hassam, Speicher, Betts, and Symons Fund Purchase, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency, Taos, NM
2004
Rochfort-en-Terre Painting Residency, Brittany, France
2001
Leeway Foundation - Window of Opportunity Award
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts - SOS Grant
Celia Reisman
Study for Remember Valley, 2014
gouache and graphite on paper
19 1/8 x 25 7/16 in.
