Artist Advocacy // Alana Celii

Alana Celii

image//nikol burgos words//shaun oppedisano

Alana Celii is an interesting young woman. The photographs she takes are about as imaginative and playful as her eclectic personality. Alana’s photographs span a wide spectrum of format and formality, while retaining her personal touch. This exceptional up-and-coming artist gave us our money’s worth in this “interview.”

Tell me a little bit about your surroundings right now.

To my left is a bookshelf filled with old auction catalogs and books on Asian art, woodworking, folk art and Americana; to my right is a photography studio filled with the paintings I’ve been photographing for our next sale; in front of me is a wall, which I’ve been slowly decorating with items I’ve found at work, so far: an Anonymous photograph of Richard Avedon, a Chinese silk panel embroidered with a bird amongst flowers, a framed watercolor of a landscape, and a Valentine from one of my bosses that says “You’re Fun!” Post-it notes are littering the bottom of my computer screen: White jade, Ivory pieces, Indian? bronzes / brass; olvidar; username and passwords, lot numbers, phone numbers. The floors are wood, portions of which are painted different colors.

The past nine months have been very strange for me because I feel like I’ve been completely re-evaluating and re-assessing what is important to me. What makes me happy? What do I value? I recently read this in regards to my birthday:

Your progressed Sun enters Sagittarius at age 25. The ages of 24 to 26 mark a critical turning point in the development of your personality. After some sort of crisis of consciousness, and perhaps elimination of circumstances that have been limiting your growth, you begin to feel lighter, more free, and decidedly more outgoing. Your desire to learn increases, and your sense of humor is enriched. You are more flexible during this period as well.

On New Year’s day I made myself a meal of collard greens and black eyed peas for good luck and fortune. Three days later I became sick, and have been ever since. The doctor’s aren’t sure what is wrong with me. I saw a holistic doctor last week and he told me that my body is “at war with itself.” It’s been a really strange roller coaster of a year so far, and I’m very slowly trying to put everything back together.

When I was younger my family would make trips to the shore for our yearly summer vacation. One of our family rituals was to have our tarot cards read on the boardwalk, which looking back on it, is kind of strange. When I was a teenager I bought myself a deck, and this year I feel like the Ace of Swords really represents my mental, emotional and physical outlook on things thus far.

When was the last time you went shooting? What sort of things were you photographing?

I’ve slowly been working on a little book that should be released soon. A lot of it focuses on pain, confusion and sickness.

Since I graduated, my shooting has definitely slowed down. I’ve spent the past year trying to learn, explore, and really re-evalute what I’m interested in. I want to grow more. I’ve been reading more, watching more movies, trying to discover a lot of new music, taking walks. I need to re-learn how to learn on my own. I never thought I was one who needed structure, but I am. I’m trying to move away from photo in a way because I have such strong feelings about it that it’s hindering my creative process. I second guess myself too much now. Art to me is should therapeutic, and when that way of working is lost, it becomes a problem.

You graduated Parsons last year. Is it scary to be out in the real world now?

Yes. I don’t know how to do my taxes.

So I was trying to think of all these generic questions to ask you about photography, but realized your work spans too many formats and approaches. To what do you attribute this jumpiness?

I don’t limit my work to one medium, format, or approach. The themes that are inherent within my work and process connect the imagery. In fact, I think my work is overly photographic at the moment, and I want to move in another direction. I don’t want to limit myself by saying that I can only approach my ideas through one technique or lens.

It looks to me like you’ve got a T4. I got one through eBay a few years back, and my mom still doesn’t get why I’d spend more than $40 on a point-and-shoot. Do you have a difficult time going back and forth between the formalized aesthetic of something like 6×6 and 35? I ask this because I’ve been getting a mental block in this way recently.

No, not really. I think people get too wrapped up in the idea that there’s a hierarchy of formats.

Send me your favorite YouTube video of the moment.

Is there a specific project that’s consuming your time at the moment?

I am currently working on two curatorial projects with Grant Willing. One, which recently launched, is in participation with 01 Magazine and our Rotating Gallery project. The gallery is on view online and also at 107 Shaw Space in Toronto. For the show, instead of having the gallery we made for sale, we’ve created an edition of 25 personalized galleries that we will make based on a form that the buyer fills out. The other is a physical exhibition that will be opening in San Fransisco in August.

I read that you’re from Texas. I actually never noticed any sort of Southern drawl, and always assumed you were from the Northeast. Was it a difficult transition to move to New York? Do you have plans to migrate anywhere else in the future?

I have spent my entire life moving. I’m half southern, half northern, and born in the midwest. I moved to Texas when I was twelve. It was a rough transition. My family spent two years in Tennessee living in the country. We lived in front of a chickpea bean farm, and down the street was a huge ravine with waterfalls. In the summer, we would ride our bikes on the back roads to abandoned houses and grave yards. I was ripped out of sixth grade in Jackson, and plopped into suburban, Texas hell. Girls are mean. Twelve year old girls with butterfly clips, pale blue eyeshadow and fake tans, decked from head to toe in Abercrombie, are even worse. Moving to New York was easier than that.

What is your biggest nonhuman influence?

Today I like: sensitive plants, florescent minerals, moon phases, and coral.