I take my inspiration from the overlooked and the ordinary.  These scenes of green lawns,


traditional houses and wooden gates develop from direct observation and preparatory drawings,


memory and my fascination with geometry and structure.  They result in medium to large-scale


paintings patchworked of almost flattened areas of color.  Although rooted in places I have lived


or visited - Merion, Pennsylvania; Strafford, Vermont and parts of California - my renderings are


not naturalistic.  Instead, they balance between realism and a dream-like world conceived in my


minds' eye.  Distinguished by other worldly light, unreal lush hues and an off centered


perspective, my neighborhoods take on a curious personality, one oddly quiet and devoid of 


figures though the human presence is tangible.  The mysterious emptiness allows viewers to


enter an illusionary space and invites the viewer's own narrative development.



Celia Reisman lives and works in Merion, Pennsylvania and Strafford, Vermont.  She is


represented in Philadelphia by Gross McCleaf Gallery and Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San


Francisco.  She received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from Yale


University.   She has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions and group shows through out the


United States.  The American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational Exhibition awarded


her a Purchase Prize and she was given a Survey Exhibition at the Michener Museum in


Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  She has been a Visiting Critic and taught at numerous Art


Departments in the Northeast.