Spaid has a naturalist's eye for the relationship of colors and the precision, balance and harmony of line and form. His surfaces and media choices enhance his work by creating heft and physical presence, maintaining a flexibility of execution while engaged with heavy rag papers and raw cotton canvas. His work is to be viewed as an object as well as a field of illusion. For over a decade, his solo exhibitions have been developed sequentially from his travels- a narrative account of his observations.From the Artist
My work as a painter is unavoidably linked to cultural and environmental experiences. I have spent over nine years of my adult life working, living and traveling outside of the United States, with extensive time in Mexico, Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa and Europe. Specifically, I have responded to traditional crafts, structures, utilitarian devices and objects of ritual. I attempt to create formal and technical situations that are, in turn, objects as well as fields of illusion.
Presently, my influences have been derived from travel and study in Vietnam and Cambodia. The purpose of this opportunity was to research traditional fabric coloring techniques that relate, in part, to the grounds or rear spaces of my paintings. Furthermore, I was intent on documenting my observations of shape, color and atmosphere in drawing journal form. The resulting work on canvas, rag paper and wood has been formalized in my Philadelphia studio.
The synthesis of my journal information incorporates reductive and geometric approaches to shape (configuration, size, repetition and juxtaposition). Formal and aesthetic issues pertaining to color, atmosphere and visual depth are connected to ambient experiences.
—Excerpted from https://geoform.net/artists/larry-spaid/, accessed 6-20-2021
Born in Indiana, Larry Spaid earned his BFA from the Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University, Indianapolis, and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is professor emeritus at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at...
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