Biography
Celeste Leeuwenburg was born in Paris and raised and Buenos Aires. Educated in the ateliers of Argentinean and International artists, filmmakers, and photographers, she also studied photography, painting, fashion and art history. Celeste moved back to Paris in 2010 at the invitation of the Cité International des Arts de Paris, as a candidate hand-selected by the city council itself, through which she was given the opportunity to work as an artist-in-residence. Celeste’s work has been exhibited in Madrid, Buenos Aires, Uruguay and Paris. Over the past year she has experimented with integrating multimedia installation and ceramic arts into her photographic projects. She currently lives and works in France.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
"Joseph." An image comes to my head, out of a dream sometimes, from something I read or saw. Then I think of “the stage”. Add colors, shapes, the striped shirts, the book in the corner and the vase with a flower. I "paint" the picture. Then, when I am satisfied with the result, I work with it, look for a gesture, a feeling, a look. I talk, observe, interact with the work. There is a dialogue, and then when the scene becomes real, the shot. The last ones are usually the best shots.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
Depends on the work. The portraits? To approach them slowly so as not to disturb the photographed subject, to make it for a few minutes at his side, his room, his world, and then quietly, keep walking in search of another image.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
Thousands could be so I decided to make a "top 5" :
Lewis Carroll, Sally Mann, Gregory Crewdson, Sofia Coppola, Peter Doig.
