Celeste Dupuy-Spencer

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer

b. 1979, New York
lives in Los Angeles

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer is an American painter, born in New York, and now residing in Los Angeles via New Orleans. Dupuy-Spencer’s paintings depict both mundane glimpses of life: intimate moments with a partner, meals shared with family, portraits of friends in informal settings, all captured with snapshot-like quality, as well as epic scenes of religious transformation and fantastical scenes of destruction. Her paintings possess enormous depth and life, transforming routine moments into compelling statements, and making palpable the terror and spectacle of violence. Many layers of storytelling leap from the canvas as viewers are brought into the ecstatic and critical lenses with which Dupuy-Spencer views her subjects, which include her family and ancestral ties to New Orleans. Her work often addresses entrenched American narratives and values, taking on––often from a personal standpoint––questions of religion, race, and privilege. Her work has appeared in major group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Made in L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions at Marlborough Contemporary, New York and Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, and will have a 2020 solo exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin. Dupuy-Spencer received a BFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2007).

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, 2017 Oil on canvas 65 x 50 in (165.1 x 127 cm) Courtesy the artist and Nino Mier Gallery