Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Painter Who Used Her Art to Fight for Justice, Dies at 46
Painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer died at her home in Los Angeles on Friday at age 46, with Jeffrey Deitch gallery announcing the death on Saturday and not providing a cause, according to ARTnews. Known for work addressing racism, protest, and intimacy, she gained wide attention for the January 6–themed painting Father, Don’t You See That I Am Burning (2021), which references Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and critiques the “American Dream.” Dupuy-Spencer discussed class and whiteness as key lenses for her work and publicly identified as trans and masculine-presenting, while also cautioning against reading all her art primarily through queerness. Born in New York in 1979, she rose quickly with inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial the following year, and Jeffrey Deitch is scheduled to open a Dupuy-Spencer show in Los Angeles the week after her death.
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This story was covered in Local Markets, Global Clashes, and Art Justice