Celeste Rapone
Exhibition view: Celeste Rapone, Presence as a Pause: Interiority and Its Radical Immanence, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, 2023. Photo © Colin Conces
Introduction
The eccentric figures that populate Celeste Rapone’s paintings allegorize the generational unease, anxiety, and ennui peculiar to millennials. In a recurring compositional gesture, bodies are positioned in contorted and crammed poses. Their limbs press against the edges of the canvas, poised to burst the picture plane. As they rub against the frame, these figures appear to thrive and ache at once.