Interview: Cecilia André, Color Ghosts and the Animation of Light

By Madeline Trice

Cecilia André is an artist, educator, and curator based in New York. André is a painter whose practice incorporates various textiles and transparent materials. André says of her practice, “From a traditional painting background, I navigated towards investigating the fabrics of my paintings, stitching pieces of background and leaving open gaps where the stretchers and wall could be seen. I come from a family of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil who were connected to the production of fabrics. I then moved onto transparencies still stitching them onto a mesh fabric. I believe this openness to different materials and producing immersive installations not only connects to my roots but invites people to partake in experiencing color light.” Her work has been shown in the Queens Botanical Garden, the Materials for the Arts Gallery, Equity Gallery, FIT Gallery, and more. In 2020 André participated in a fellowship with the AnkhLave Arts Alliance and in 2022, she became an AnkhLave curator where she has selected artists for fellowships and curated for Queens and Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. You can read more about Cecilia on her personal website, or check out the AnkhLave Art Alliance’s page for information on their ongoing projects.

(Trice) You’ve studied, exhibited, and taught the arts in both Brazil and the United States. Compared to Brazil, how different or the same was the local culture surrounding the arts and academia when you first moved to NYC? How do you feel the community here can learn, or has already learned from you and your experiences?

(André) So many things change when one immigrates and you change as well. In the end it’s hard to tell if you are still the same person or a new one. I have experimented with different formats in teaching. I try to keep away from institutions. I am more keen on non-traditional forms of learning which I believe go better with art making. Becoming a tour guide for contemporary arts was a great learning and interactive adult teaching experience. I could not have done that in Brazil because the gallery districts in São Paulo are not as dense as those in NYC for me to do walking tours. Discussing art with adults and choosing best shows for my visits led me to art curation and now to two publications. Looking back though I’d say my fields of interest have carried through my life in both countries. 


(Trice) In your outdoor installations and “Color Transparencies” collection, you use different colors of transparent materials and light to create colored shadows. Some of these works are installed outside in the sun, some in front of or directly onto windows, and others indoors with artificial lights pointed toward them. When you’re designing these pieces, do you do so with a specific type or angle of light in mind and do you consider the surface where the shadow is cast to be part of the work as well?

​(André) One of the things I most like about color transparencies and working with light are the surprises one gets as these color ghosts come to life. When the works are outdoors the angle of the sun shifts and the shadows move so dramatically - which of course is a false notion because we ourselves as a planet have revolved around the sun. When the work is indoors the shadows are less intense but more stable. I then mix these installations with transparency mobiles because I like the viewer to perceive the animation of light.

(Trice) There is an element of interactivity to your work with the way the transparencies can cast their shadows onto the skin of the people viewing them. You’ve also created a number of pieces that hang from the ceiling and spin or move about and you even have a solo show titled Dancing With Colors. How would you describe the importance of movement, interaction, and performance to your practice?

​(André) It has been a revelation for me to bring my audience literally inside my art. I like to say my art is not the physical transparent vinyl pieces and mesh but the color shadows produced, ergo the work is ephemeral and is activated by audience participation which can be a risk, but has mostly been a joy. In the “Dancing with Colors” show I added Brazilian women singers of the 70’s and 80’s dancing music as an invitation for participants to don white fabrics and capture the fainter indoor color lights while dancing beneath them. I also attached the vinyl to the glass of the gallery which faced the street both as a screen and as a different way to experience the see-through quality of color light filters. 

(Trice) You use a number of burlap bags in your work, most of which appear to have once carried cocoa beans. Is there a particular significance to the cocoa bean bags beyond the texture of the burlap and the accessibility of such bags?

(André) I have delved deep into Marcel Duchamp's work, especially the “Large Glass" where a chocolate grinder is part of the eros machinery of the nine bachelors at the lower half of the piece. When I walked into a Bushwick producer of chocolate that featured the grinder machine and sourced its produce organically, I thought it would be nice to combine of the somewhat transparent but very muted toned jute and my vibrant color vinyl pieces. I loved how the jute fabric retained the smell of the cocoa beans. I was able to capture the gesture of a worker cutting open the bag in a semi-circular incision in one of my favorite pieces.

(Trice) As not only an artist, but also a curator, how does your own artistic practice and sensibilities inform your work as a curator and what do you look for in an artists’ body of work when selecting them for a project? 

(André) I believe every artist has a different seed idea in their work, it takes a lot of toil and maturity to get to a clarity about what that is. When I select artists for a project or show, I like to see a variation of the same idea, not as a set to be displayed, but as the way the artist teases out their ideas and prods their materials. Being an articulate artist can also help clarify where the work is going. But sometimes it can be something in the work itself, an urgency, that lets you know the work needs to be shown and shared.

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​(Trice) You use a lot of textiles and textures in your work, especially in your “Tensioned Fabrics” collection. In a previous feature for Quail Bell Magazine you mentioned that you stretch your own canvases and how your use of bed linens and embroidered fabrics in your work both celebrate and desecrate these crafts that previous generations have historically associated with femininity. Could you speak a little further on the importance of craftwork and femininity to your practice? 

(André) Our family was very insular except for one uncle who married a non-Lebanese woman from the seaside city of Santos. My aunt Marilia mentored a group of women who embroidered bed linens and tablecloths. All the women in my family took great pride in their linen chests and collections which naturally included many from this charity project. When I immigrated I had just had a baby and was starting my family life. I was asked if I wanted new linens and I answered -No! I want the old linens! The only thing I always liked to iron were those beautifully embroidered hems. After a few decades the fabrics begin to fray. This coincided with my experimenting with pieced linen backgrounds sourced from artist friends. Since the word linen in English is the same for a type of fabric, painting backgrounds and bed sheets, I figured I’d upcycle my treasured and well loved linens. In doing so, I realized how these embroidery artists were such artists in themselves. I feel more complete as an artist being able to incorporate craft traditions in my work. The more inclusive we become about who can do and is doing art, the more we reap in quality and ideas that feed our souls.

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