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Courtesy Harper's, New York

Untitled

ArtistSpencer Lewis, born 1979

Spencer Lewis was born in Hartford, CT, in 1979. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Known for his gestural paintings on carboard and jute, Spencer Lewis uses flashy bright and colorful notions executed through streaked lines, smears of paint and rough strokes that suggest the impulsive creative process underneath. With chaotic, almost infinite layers, Lewis’s canvases conceal and simultaneously unveil a brushstroke, a gesture over the other, stories and moments culminating and accumulating on the painting’s densest parts. Despite the apparent unpredictability of Lewis’s compositions, they are based on a methodology and structure. Lewis is, in fact, interested in pictorial organization and image-making. Consistently concentrating towards the centre of the canvas, Lewis’s brushstrokes frantically tell the different layers of the same narrative. Descriptive marks and eloquent signs build up on the jute to create a history on the verge of legibility.

Date2022
MediumAcrylic, oil, enamel, spray paint, and ink on jute
Dimensions96 x 67 1/8 x 2 in. (243.8 x 170.5 x 5.1 cm)
Signedverso
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Made possible by David Adams, Stafford Broumand, Da Costa Gomez Family, Suzanne McFayden, Frank Moore, Richard and Lisa Plepler, and the Thielen Family, courtesy Contemporary Culture, 2023.12
ClassificationPainting
Provenance(Harper’s Books Inc., East Hamptons, NY), 2022; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2023
On ViewNo
Untitled96 × 67.1 in.Standard/Movie Poster40 × 27 in.

This artwork's face covers about 6.0× the area of a standard movie poster.Drawn to the same scale.