JAMI POWELL, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art
Hood Quarterly, fall 2024
"As a symbol, the apple tree reflects the natural cycle of growth, decay, and renewal, showcasing nature's resilience and the inevitability of change. On a metaphorical level, orchards represent human choices and their consequences, underscoring the notion that beginnings are often hidden within endings."
–Enrique Martínez Celaya
Nearly a decade in the making, artist Enrique Martínez Celaya's exhibition The Grief of Almost facilitates a contemplative journey exploring the cycles of hope, catastrophe, and redemption that are part of human life. Inspired by the life and work of Robert Frost and their shared connections to Dartmouth and its environs, particularly apple trees and orchards, Martínez Celaya's exhibition is more than an installation of art—it is an immersive visual poem that invites audiences to explore the innate drive for self-understanding and the human desire to live a meaningful life.
The Grief of Almost features a series of four large-scale paintings and a sculptural installation titled The Emissary that consists of a plane painted to look like the night sky descending upon the gallery while towing a dead apple tree. The exhibition includes minimal text outside of the introductory panel—there are no extended labels describing the paintings or the sculpture, for example. Instead, Martínez Celaya asks viewers to consider the symbolism of the visual elements in the paintings and the installation from their own perspectives and for their own purposes.
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While visitors may read and even keep a statement written by Martínez Celaya after walking through the exhibition, they are encouraged to explore the installation on their own first. Standing in front of a work of art without knowing what you are supposed to think or having a label to guide your experience can be discomfiting, but it can also be generative. When we push ourselves into spaces of ambiguity or the unknown, the experience can help us better understand the world and our place in it. We might also find that we know more than we think we do.
In this exhibition, then, what began as a dialogue between the artist and the poet Robert Frost expands to include the audience. This immersive poem is only fully realized through its interaction with its viewers and the contribution of their intellectual and physical engagement with the works. They are even invited to compose a poem, write a note, or create a drawing on paper provided in the gallery. These gestures, which will remain secret, are folded in half and pinned to the tree of The Emissary like leaves, bringing it back to life and visually signaling the ongoing growth and transformation of human experience.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by a gift from Rick and Linda Roesch and the Bernard R. Siskind Fund.
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