Celis' art demonstrates a grand and unbroken continuity from his work of the 1960s in Buenos Aires through his explorations in South and Central America, to Paris and then to New York in the 1990s. He has lived through several generations of styles and has distilled his own artistic language from his study and observations of many artistic movements including the seminal early twentieth-century art of French Cubism, to mid-century Abstract Expressionism and even the irony-laden theoretically driven expressionism of the past two decades.
Celis has always insisted that an artist must be of his own time and his own people. "Su propio tiempo" is a phrase he has written and repeated often in his published statements. In this respect, the artist demonstrates the great continuity that is even now evolving between the various countries of the Americas. It is indeed obvious that we are linked geographically in a continuous piece of land running from Canada to the tip of South America. Barriers of language and custom have kept us apart for many centuries but they are melting with great rapidity as our people become bilingual and many of us have spent significant periods of time living in and around one another's culture.
Susan Larsen, Ph.D.
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CELIS, A FRIEND OF SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
In 2001, the former Chair of the Board of Trustees at Syracuse University, Joseph Lampe, established the Iris L. Pérez Celis Fund in honor of the artist's late wife. This support provides scholarship opportunities for minority art students at the College of Visual and Performing Arts.
“The Pérez Celis scholarship was a great help to me,” said Paul Valdéz, recipient of the Iris L. Pérez Celis scholarship in 2002. “But this contribution to my education was more than just financial. By bringing Pérez Celis to Syracuse for two weeks, he gave me the opportunity to work with a great artist.”
During his stay at SU in 2002, the master painter collaborated with Valdéz, Ted Holland '03, Andrew Sullivan '05, and Jill Olm G'04 on a work that is presently exhibited at the Schaffer Art Building's main office, on the main campus. The experience of that visit is documented in a 30-minute video produced by Pedro Cuperman and Owen Shapiro, Eyes of Perez Celis: A Poetics of Color (Point of Contact Productions, 2003).
In March of 2003, as the Orangemen shifted into high gear in their race to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, Celis was inspired to create a unique portrait of Coach Jim Boeheim and star player Carmelo Anthony. Currently on display in the lobby of the University Sheraton Hotel, profits from sales of lithographs of this work (available in limited edition through Point of Contact), are being donated to the Jim Boeheim Scholarship fund.
