Spencer Finch

Spencer Finch is an American artist who works across a diverse range of mediums, including watercolor, photography, glass, electronics, video, and fluorescent lights.

Biography of Spencer Finch

Spencer Finch was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1962. He pursued his education at the Rhode Island School of Design, Hamilton College, and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in comparative literature from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, USA (1985), and a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, RI, USA (1989).

The inaugural retrospective of his artwork, culminating in March 2008, was curated at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. Finch's contributions were featured in prominent events such as the 2004 Whitney Biennial, the 2008 Turin Triennale, and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).

His recent solo exhibitions include "Forever is Composed of Nows" at Lisson Gallery in Shanghai (2023), "La Grande Jatte" at Rhona Hoffmann Gallery in Chicago (2023), "We Send the Wave to Find the Wave" at James Cohan in New York (2022), "Lux and Lumen" at Hill Art Foundation in New York (2022), and many more.

Spencer Finch's works have also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including "Color Field" at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville (2019), "Peindre la nuit" at Centre Pompidou Metz in Metz (2018), "What Does Art do at Hospitals?" at Koes Museum for Kunst in Koge (2017), and "40 Years" at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago (2016), among others.

Currently, Spencer Finch lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he continues to work.

Spencer Finch's Art Style

Spencer Finch is renowned for his captivating light installations, which offer visual representations of his encounters with natural phenomena. Exploring the intricacies of light, color, memory, and perception, his artistic repertoire encompasses watercolors, drawings, video, and photography.

Motivated by what he terms the "impossible desire to see oneself seeing," Finch skillfully bridges the realms of external reality and internal contemplation, casting an enchanting prism through which viewers can engage with their surroundings and introspections.

He transforms his perceptions of the world into luminous abstract hues, infusing them with cultural and historical nuances. For example, in a tribute to Emily Dickinson's 1862 poem "Before I got my eye put out," he meticulously gauged the sunlight in her Massachusetts garden. Recreating the fleeting shadow of a passing cloud, he employed fluorescent tubes enveloped in gel and suspended theater filters to evoke the ethereal ambiance captured in her verse.