The Conceptual Art Portfolio of El Celso
El Celso is a conceptual artist who lives and works in both Los Angeles and New York. The artist’s practice spans a wide variety of materials and methods, with recent works incorporating painting techniques, text, and video.
Joseph, ink and paint on cardboard
The artist’s most recent series combines figurative painting with geometric abstract compositions and creative writing. I enjoy the way the artist deploys text in these paintings -- the letter and word forms are layered over a simple figurative image in such a way that, from a distance, they become simply part of the texture of the painting. It’s only up close that the words and meanings begin to reveal themselves.
It’s interesting to see these paintings in the context of El Celso’s overall portfolio. The artist’s works, even those that are strictly figurative, tend toward conceptual interpretations. Looking through El Celso’s portfolio, one gets the sense that no image is intended to be taken strictly at face value.
