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Spencer Finch 
Finch’s work concerns the physiological and psychological aspects of perception. How does our inner world influence our outer world? How can we be certain of what we see? How can we translate our perceptions into communicable form? Finch’s work in drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation often sets out to recreate intense observation of everyday experiences as filtered through his memory and translated into colored light. For Sunset (South Texas, 6/21/03) (2003; detail below), he presented the experience of a Texas sunset by splitting it into the colors that compose it. His recent exhibition at Postmasters Gallery in New York, titled "As much of noon as I can take between my finite eyes" in reference to an Emily Dickinson poem, included the installation Sunlight in an Empty Room (Passing Cloud for Emily Dickinson, Amherst, MA, August 28, 200) (above). Using one hundred fluorescent lights and a ceiling-hung cloud of blue Mylar filters, Finch re-created both the daylight and the shadow cast by a passing cloud in the poet's back yard. That these self-imposed tasks of rigorous observation and translation often fail by standards of scientific accuracy only adds to their fascination. As Finch explains, "There is always a paradox inherent in vision, an impossible desire to see yourself seeing. A lot of my work probes this tension: to want to see, but not being able to." Finch’s art lies in the gap between the possible and the futile, as he strives to give form to perception and share it with others.  |