Celeste II 2006

Curator: Requena Nozal’s "Celeste II," created in 2006, certainly grabs the eye. It's rendered in acrylic on canvas. My initial reaction is how powerfully the high-contrast palette and soft shapes work against one another. It almost feels as though I'm peering into an emotional world. What do you make of it? Editor: The most immediately striking feature for me is the texture—or, perhaps, the *implied* texture. The layers of diluted acrylic suggest a watercolor technique, offering a soft effect, yet it’s painted on canvas. I am wondering about the physical act of its making—this illusion of fluidity. Curator: The juxtaposition of delicacy with raw, bold geometric shapes can invite introspection. Blue, in particular, speaks to contemplation. Looking at "Celeste II", are we seeing celestial forms hinted through the artist’s vision of abstraction? How are these shapes imbued with historical meaning? Editor: Perhaps. The scale of this work must have been considerable to manipulate the acrylic in a way that suggests freedom. One could be seeing its materiality not as celestial symbolism but just as the raw components involved with industrial paint manufacturing in dialogue with color-field painting’s ideas about large-scale fields of emotion. Curator: That's a very grounded perspective, focusing on materiality. My eye sees motifs within the blots of pigment—a dove perhaps? Or a veiled face? How much do cultural memory and inherited understanding contribute to what we believe is abstract, to begin with? Are these symbols deeply ingrained or purely incidental? Editor: Interesting. Though acrylic is commonly used now, the time investment in masking areas on the canvas to create hard lines against these more atmospheric forms had its process too, creating its cultural artefact through human action and production. And look how thinly these have been applied. Curator: Perhaps the very notion of 'Celeste' speaks of humanity's inherent urge to find symbolism and meaning where none might intrinsically exist. Editor: That very well may be—I must say that having focused on its making, I may look again at its potential symbolic message after this!