George Spencer

November 3 - 29, 2021

For “Cleaning out the Attic” Spencer reached deep into his archives and came out with a multitude of paintings which he reworked into a series of totems and wall hangings.  The work fills the storefront windows and spills into the gallery space, covering the walls, floor and ceiling in a chaotic cacophony of bright colors and abstract forms.  

“Cleaning out the Attic” gave Spencer the opportunity to create bold, new work and at the same time offer retrospection on his years of painting and sculpting.  By cutting his canvases into pieces and then collaging the fragments onto cardboard tubes, sheets of lumber, or rolls of tar paper Spencer is mirroring what he sees as the recent dismantling and decay of society.

Spencer says, “I want to get away from the fixed object.  I work with what we are living through which is entropy, instability and indeterminacy.  I lessen the authoritarian space between artist and viewer.  I work with images, colors and designs that come from the infinite surprises of randomness rather than rote cognition. 

“This lack of a fixed object includes painted umbrellas and parachutes which go on the wall, on the floor, draped over furniture, on people etc. in shapes that change periodically, collages that have no fixed orientation or dimensions and sculpture that transform itself due to exposure to extreme conditions. 

“The work often has somewhat loosely attached pieces.  It is expected that some parts will fall off.  I no longer want to create work that sits idly in storage boxes.  Now I am working on collaging and repurposing my old work.  Perhaps the final result will be one massive sculptural collage that will incorporate all of my work.

“This is a sensible response to the current state of the World.  We are tempting the fates and the fates always win.  We are surrounded by a bizarre combination of aggressive late stage capitalization and entropy, starvation amid excess, children in cages alongside heavily armed militia who should be in cages. 

“Under these circumstances I don't think any of the old rules and related hierarchies that are the repressive collective judgements of self appointed keepers of the cultural gates have anything to do with the needs of present day creativity. 

“I am working my way through the destruction of color harmonies, of the stabilities of compositional delicacies, the convention of frames and proper presentation, all the accouterments of the Euro/phallocentric desire for verisimilitude. 

“My wish is to get back to spontaneity.  The fullest examples of spontaneous art are the art of children and outsiders.  I want to be on the edge of unacceptable or over it as a minimum.”

George Spencer is an artist, curator, poet and interviewer who lives in Kinderhook, NY.  His interviews can be heard on WGXC Radio.  He created an eight hour reading/musical event dedicated to James Joyce's Ulysses on WGXC in 2019 and 2021.  His most recent book of poetry, “Unpious Pilgrim,” (2011, Fly By Night Press) is available on Amazon.  His most recent curation is “WinterOver?” on view 24/7 in the yard of Time & Space Limited through spring of 2022.  Spencer has shown at Joyce Goldstein Gallery, Thompson Giroux Gallery, Collars Works, LabSpace and more.