Celeste Dupuy-Spencer: Burning in the Eyes of the Maker
- Kristine Schomaker
- 38 minutes ago
- 6 min read
By Melanie Chapman
Let the Art (and the Artist) Speak for Itself
Outside of the art world, painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer may not yet be as familiar a name as Jean-Michel Basquiat or Vincent Van Gogh, but to those who followed her artistic growth over the past ten years, she was on her way.
Perhaps therein lay the problem.
For those who knew Celeste personally and/or had the opportunity to work with her professionally, there is still a profound sense of loss permeating most conversations regarding her new solo exhibition, given her recent and untimely passing just a few days prior to the show's opening at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles. The grief and shock is justified, of course.
But for those who are just learning about this immensely talented and brave artist, and for those who will now see her work in person for the first time, please, for the sake of the artist and that which she was striving for, let the work speak for itself.
Burning in the Eyes of the Maker is Dupuy-Spencer's first solo exhibition in five years and is comprised of 36 recent paintings hung throughout four separate spaces, including "The Shape of the Rock That's Hurling Towards the Sea" (2022) — a painting so large in scale and so powerful in imagery that it nearly demands the gallery all to itself. One hopes this epic work — which features a discordant symphony of predatory animals, a flaming medusa head, references to authoritarian violence, disasters at sea, three-dimensional items of trash including cigarette butts, and a shrewd nod to the global consumerism of the art world — will find a home in a major museum where it belongs, and thus allow this and future generations to reckon with all the forces that Dupuy-Spencer was able to summon and render in this four-panel masterwork.
Additional standouts of this excellent show include "My Daughter! My Gilda! Ella mi tolse il fulmine di mano (Rigoletto)" (2025) — roughly translated as "My Daughter! My Gilda! She took the thunderbolt from my hand" — the opening painting and one that demonstrates Dupuy-Spencer's talent with dramatic figurative storytelling. Perhaps this specific painting was chosen to ease the viewer in towards the less narrative and more confrontational paintings which follow.
Another powerful work in scale and imagery is "Back to Where the Start Ended ('A Greeting to You from the Mud')" (2024), featuring a phalanx of combat-ready soldiers advancing from the left as a larger uniformed figure dominates the upper right third of the canvas, incandescent flamethrower in hand scorching the landscape, so dynamically painted one is inclined to stand back in order to not get singed by the intensity of its colors or, more importantly, its meaning.
Perhaps one of the more controversial paintings, judged by the reactions Dupuy-Spencer received, is the untitled piece from 2025 depicting a tight gathering of men examining what is unmistakably an American flag, with a globe in the lower right and a hooded face of death in the upper right. The figures are attired in what can only be interpreted as that of West Asia/the Middle East, and frankly an unmistakable feeling of foreboding descends the longer one spends with this painting. Whether that is limited to the political and therefore moral message Dupuy-Spencer is grappling with, or also includes the impact of how this work was received in the art world and beyond, and what those strong reactions might have done to her spirits and willingness to continue with painting, that is left up to the viewer's interpretation.
Finally, one must not shy away from spending time with "Self Portrait in the Dark" (2024), hung immediately to the left in the main gallery. In keeping with most of the work in this show, Dupuy-Spencer tackles her own likeness head on, in dark tones and without flattery, and evokes the exhaustion and despair of Michelangelo's self-portrait inclusion in the Last Judgement painting in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
Due to the layout of the gallery space, it would be easy to miss the four paintings hung in the smaller conference room immediately to the left upon entrance: Bones (2022), Station XI (Aileen) (2024), The Hero, the Scientist, and the Mage (2022), and Born in the Borderland (2024). A revisit to the Deitch Gallery to see those works proved unfruitful, as that space is now housing a large array of additional paintings not available for public viewing. The gallery has been tasked with cataloguing Dupuy-Spencer's collection of unseen works in light of her passing, and while a temporary disappointment to an eager viewer, one must respect the wishes of the family, and the staff who collaborated with Dupuy-Spencer for the past year and a half in preparation for this show. They all must grapple with the fact that her seemingly infinite talent and energy is now suddenly and absolutely finite. This process must be respected, even if it means less opportunity to take in the immensity of her gifts.
One thing that cannot be in question is Dupuy-Spencer's courage in life and in her subject matter. Her talent with the formal elements in painting — color, composition, layers, narrative, and abstraction — and knowledge of and appreciation for the work of both contemporary and classical painters (think Belgian painter James Ensor, 1860–1949; Austrian Egon Schiele, 1890–1918; American Kerry James Marshall, born 1955; and French-born American painter and mentor Nicole Eisenman, born 1965) warrants further research in order to better comprehend Dupuy-Spencer's influences and intentions.
Although Dupuy-Spencer had spoken openly in interviews about her journey with a variety of personal issues, both health and emotional in nature, as an artist and as a human being she resisted being defined by labels. While she embraced her sexuality ("I want to say right here that I am so happy to be so gay. It's one of the greatest things I've ever been given. I love radical gay history, and when queers take to the streets against oppression, I'm proud to be counted in that number."), Dupuy-Spencer resisted being labeled or pigeonholed as a "Queer Artist," considering that to be "presumptuous, even kind of violent." (Bomb Magazine, 2018)
Judging solely by the current work in the Burning in the Eyes of the Maker show — the title of which may be a reference to the Daniel Lanois song "The Maker" — one might not immediately sense that Dupuy-Spencer had a wicked sense of humor, and was also compelled by love, affection, and sympathy for humanity, themes perhaps more readily apparent in her earlier paintings. However, addressing some of the more troubling aspects of the times in which we live can in fact be understood not just as an act of bravery, but also as a gesture of fierce, unflinching love.
From the introduction to an upcoming monograph (also titled Burning in the Eyes of the Maker, to be published by Monacelli/Phaidon), please allow the artist to speak for herself: "Painting, for me, is participation in the aliveness of life. It is communication as recognition, not explanation. Meaning emerges only through encounter — when a viewer and a painting agree to stand in the same place and face the same uncertainty. The task is contact."
As we are all mortal — everyone alive today and anyone who has ever existed or will ever exist — eventually we will all die. This truth can be sad, even paralyzing, devastating. But what we do while alive, the forces we grapple with, the risks we take, the people we are loved by and those that we love, the ways we communicate what it is to be alive — these are the truest opportunities we have.
Let us all come to the gallery now and honor Celeste Dupuy-Spencer by facing the task, and be in contact with her aliveness through her work.
Thank you for being brave. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for being yourself.
Rest in Peace, Celeste.
— Melanie Chapman
Additional reading: Celeste Dupuy-Spencer by Katherine Cooper https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2018/01/09/celeste-dupuy-spencer/
How Echo Park's Old Master Is Painting the End of the World — LAmag https://share.google/eLzasv9TlY18M7ib0
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery 925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90038 April 18 – May 30, 2026 deitch.com
