is an American artist of Latvian origin who received world wide recognition with her paintings and graphite drawings of starry skies.  Areas of work: painting, graphics, installations.

Vija Celmina was born in Riga on the 25^th of October 1938.  In 1944, the family goes into exile to Germany where they live in a Latvian displaced persons camp in Esslingen.  In 1948, together with her parents she immigrates to Indianapolis in the United States.  Studying at the John Heren Art Institute in Indianapolis (1955 – 1962), she is a frequent visitor to New York where she becomes acquainted with abstract expressionism.  In the summer of 1961 at a Yale University course, she decides to take up painting.  In 1963 she moves to Venice California in order to study at the University of California in Los Angeles, from which she graduate with a Master’s Degree in 1965.  Having finished her studies, she works as a tutor in painting and graphics at the university (UCLA). The artist continues to hone her professional skills at both the University of California, Irvine  (1967 – 1972), and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (1976 – 1977).

During her time in California (1963 – 1980) the artist develops her oeuvre of expression and range of subject matter.  Vija Celmina begins to paint simple domestic objects that are around her – an air conditioner, a radio, a television.  Often the artist finds inspiration in newspaper and magazine photographs, especially pictures of aeroplanes.  In this period we sense an interest in pop art and hyperrealism. For Vija however, the process of creating artwork is more import than the meaning of the depicted objects.  In an attempt to understand the construction of waves, Vija uses her photographs of the ocean and creates her first paintings and drawings of the surface of water.  In addition to water, the artist also displays paintings and drawings of desert sands and starry skies.

Since 1980 Vija Celmins lives in New York.  At the beginning of 1990, the artist starts to work on the series called “Spider Web”, as well as continuing the cycle of works depicting waves.

The list of where Vija Celmina’s solo exhibitions and retrospectives have been presented throughout the world includes the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York – 1973, 1993, The David McGee Gallery, New York – 1983, 1988, 1992,1995, 1996, 2001, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles -1994, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, The Institute of Contemporary Art, London, The Museum National de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Museum fur Modern Kunst, Frankfurt – 1996 – 1997, Anthony d’Offay Gallery London 1999, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – 2002.

Vija Celmina’ s works can be found in many museums and galleries in the United States, including The Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery, Washington, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Metroplitan Museum and also in the Centre Pompidou Paris, where a major retrospective of the artist is being prepared for opening at the end of 2006.