August 14, 2025
Cecilia Z. Miguez
A Thousand Years in One Night
Louis Stern Fine Arts
July 10 - September 6, 2025
Cecilia Z. Miguez
In her evocative exhibition A Thousand Years in One Night, Cecilia Z. Miguez laments the loss of her Altadena home and studio during the Eaton fire. Like numerous Los Angeles artists, she was forced to confront the destruction of her home/studio and possessions. Because she had an upcoming exhibition, she needed to quickly rebound and got to work transforming objects not completely obliterated by the conflagration into new creations. Culling from the rubble, she used fragments and remnants of sculptures made from bronze and wood as well as found objects as a point of departure for a new direction. Her latest sculptures evoke survival and the courage to continue while overcoming devastating obstacles.
Miguez is a figurative sculptor whose career spans many decades. In the past, her mixed-media pieces were celebrated for their intriguing depictions of the female form and the way she examined its beauty and associated mythologies. They were well crafted, intricate and seductive. In this new work, she embraces bodies with missing parts, as well as the scars and the imperfections resulting from the flames. The new pieces have a rawness and vulnerability that distinguishes them from her prior sculptures.
The Smile Is the Last Thing to Go (all works 2025) had a golden patina and modest scale before the fire. It portrayed a curvaceous woman with a gracefully posed arm and an elaborate headdress. In a pamphlet that accompanies the exhibition Miguez writes, "This sculpture's exquisite torso was the first piece to be salvaged from the ruins. As if she had attracted the real thing, a chaotic splash of melted bronze separated her feet, her legs, and one arm, which was never recovered. She is now kept frozen in time, witnessing her own inevitable destruction." The new work is missing an arm so the hand is attached to the torso at the hip. The figure stares down at an awkwardly colored and positioned hand which holds a pile of melted bronze, as if to say, what happened to me?
Fantasy by Fire, is a small sculpture just 18 inches high. It also features a standing female figure with a missing arm. Surrounding the woman's head is a halo of fire. From the back, the gold plated amoeba-like shape grows from the base of the skull and branches up and out in multiple directions, its pockmarked surface dotted with red glass micro-beads. Seen from the front, this charred halo encircles the woman's head. The red beads that outline the shape allude to blazing flames.Miguez refers to the waist high sculpture The Golden Piece as a queen. When the upper portion of the body was retrieved after the fire, one arm was missing and the bronze head had melted. For the new work, Miguez attached another head that was similarly culled from the debris, painted her lips red and gave her expressive eyes. A disembodied hand was adhered to a wooden base that resembled a lectern or a column, yet functions as a body. Much of the work is covered in golden beads — the charred remains coexist with newfound hope. A large bow covers the back of the work as if restoring glory to the queen.
Among the smaller pieces is A Thousand Years in One Night. In the pamphlet, Miguez speaks of how the pre-burned sculpture had a face resembling a mask with painted blue eyes that peaked out from a mysterious wooden time machine covered with found gears and knobs. In the current exhibition, it is presented as a relic. The head a ruin, now inset into a wooden frame and surrounded by empty glass bottles. Miguez describes the new sculpture as being entombed like a mummy "…buried not with material wealth but with the riches of imagination…" Daydream is another smaller work consisting of two heads fused to a dilapidated wooden support with a crackled surface, something at once complete and unfinished.
The female figures that populate this exhibition are mostly bald and have the stature of undressed manikins, yet they are simultaneously elegant, stoic and poised. They appear in different degrees of disrepair, missing limbs, as well as hands and feet. Yet despite their haunting demeanor, they assert their presence with determination. Miguez wrote of wanting to guide her unfinished works down new paths after the fire struck, and being forced to confront the unexpected, she rose to the occasion to create evocative and meaningful new pieces. She gathered what she could find from what remained and lovingly invented new stories to give them a new life. The new sculptures emerge from the cocoon of fire to become assertive forms that channel spirits of healing and hope.
A Thousand Years in One Night
Louis Stern Fine Arts
July 10 - September 6, 2025
Cecilia Z. Miguez
In her evocative exhibition A Thousand Years in One Night, Cecilia Z. Miguez laments the loss of her Altadena home and studio during the Eaton fire. Like numerous Los Angeles artists, she was forced to confront the destruction of her home/studio and possessions. Because she had an upcoming exhibition, she needed to quickly rebound and got to work transforming objects not completely obliterated by the conflagration into new creations. Culling from the rubble, she used fragments and remnants of sculptures made from bronze and wood as well as found objects as a point of departure for a new direction. Her latest sculptures evoke survival and the courage to continue while overcoming devastating obstacles.
Miguez is a figurative sculptor whose career spans many decades. In the past, her mixed-media pieces were celebrated for their intriguing depictions of the female form and the way she examined its beauty and associated mythologies. They were well crafted, intricate and seductive. In this new work, she embraces bodies with missing parts, as well as the scars and the imperfections resulting from the flames. The new pieces have a rawness and vulnerability that distinguishes them from her prior sculptures.
The Smile Is the Last Thing to Go (all works 2025) had a golden patina and modest scale before the fire. It portrayed a curvaceous woman with a gracefully posed arm and an elaborate headdress. In a pamphlet that accompanies the exhibition Miguez writes, "This sculpture's exquisite torso was the first piece to be salvaged from the ruins. As if she had attracted the real thing, a chaotic splash of melted bronze separated her feet, her legs, and one arm, which was never recovered. She is now kept frozen in time, witnessing her own inevitable destruction." The new work is missing an arm so the hand is attached to the torso at the hip. The figure stares down at an awkwardly colored and positioned hand which holds a pile of melted bronze, as if to say, what happened to me?
Fantasy by Fire, is a small sculpture just 18 inches high. It also features a standing female figure with a missing arm. Surrounding the woman's head is a halo of fire. From the back, the gold plated amoeba-like shape grows from the base of the skull and branches up and out in multiple directions, its pockmarked surface dotted with red glass micro-beads. Seen from the front, this charred halo encircles the woman's head. The red beads that outline the shape allude to blazing flames.Miguez refers to the waist high sculpture The Golden Piece as a queen. When the upper portion of the body was retrieved after the fire, one arm was missing and the bronze head had melted. For the new work, Miguez attached another head that was similarly culled from the debris, painted her lips red and gave her expressive eyes. A disembodied hand was adhered to a wooden base that resembled a lectern or a column, yet functions as a body. Much of the work is covered in golden beads — the charred remains coexist with newfound hope. A large bow covers the back of the work as if restoring glory to the queen.
Among the smaller pieces is A Thousand Years in One Night. In the pamphlet, Miguez speaks of how the pre-burned sculpture had a face resembling a mask with painted blue eyes that peaked out from a mysterious wooden time machine covered with found gears and knobs. In the current exhibition, it is presented as a relic. The head a ruin, now inset into a wooden frame and surrounded by empty glass bottles. Miguez describes the new sculpture as being entombed like a mummy "…buried not with material wealth but with the riches of imagination…" Daydream is another smaller work consisting of two heads fused to a dilapidated wooden support with a crackled surface, something at once complete and unfinished.
The female figures that populate this exhibition are mostly bald and have the stature of undressed manikins, yet they are simultaneously elegant, stoic and poised. They appear in different degrees of disrepair, missing limbs, as well as hands and feet. Yet despite their haunting demeanor, they assert their presence with determination. Miguez wrote of wanting to guide her unfinished works down new paths after the fire struck, and being forced to confront the unexpected, she rose to the occasion to create evocative and meaningful new pieces. She gathered what she could find from what remained and lovingly invented new stories to give them a new life. The new sculptures emerge from the cocoon of fire to become assertive forms that channel spirits of healing and hope.