Marcel van Eeden: Celia

The drawings of Dutch artist Marcel van Eeden seem almost old-fashioned at first glance. Since 1993, van Eeden has created thousands of small-format charcoal and pencil drawings on paper, based on motifs taken from magazines, books, and topographical atlases dating from before 1965, the year of his birth. The resulting panorama is a record of the artist's obsession with reconstructing a history in which he himself did not participate. Van Eedan calls his life's work the "encyclopedia of my death," a designation which is only contradictory at first glance, for the time before his birth is just as important to the artist as the time after his death - a state of total absence.
This book airs the mystery surrounding Celia, the protagonist of show more van Eeden's latest cycle of works, and also features a representative selection of early drawings. show less