Star Field III
Vija Celmins
American, born Latvia 1938
1982–83
A meticulously rendered graphite drawing on acrylic ground on paper in which the artist painstakingly reproduces an all-over star field to evoke the vastness of the night sky through focused, repetitive mark-making.
From a distance it reads like a black-and-white photograph of a sparkling cosmos, while up close the subtle size variations, soft halos, and tiny smudges reveal the slow, human hand behind the illusion and create a hushed sense of depth.
Celmins’s star fields bridge photographic imagery and intimate draftsmanship, transforming impersonal astronomical views into objects of contemplative labor and reshaping late-twentieth-century approaches to representation, scale, and the sublime.
Medium
Graphite on acrylic ground on paper
Dimensions
21 x 27" (53.3 x 68.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Edward R. Broida
Accession
684.2005
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
