Steve Spencer

Artist Statement

I am using the plastic properties of acrylic paint and representational styles to make visual music. I have synesthesia, where I hear colors and see rhythms and harmonies.

My work aims to convey the energies and emotions of people, places, memories, situations and things. How we process the firehose of sensory information we take in from the world. With a feeling of balance.

When I started painting at age forty five I set out strict rules based on folk artists practices. I painted on cardboard, could only mix two colors and only use three brushes. These restrictions helped me develop a personal style. I’ve always used an idea-book to work out compositions and as my style emerged I opened up my creative process, bouncing ideas back and forth between a bevy of sketch pads.

As I’ve matured, the ideas in my books increasingly mutate, evolve and take unexpected turns. I’ve embraced the idea that every step in the creative process is another chance to improvise. To see new possibilities that weren’t obvious before. My process is more of a jazz mindset than a chamber music sensibility.

In service of communicating my feelings about a work I am open to a wide range of visual strategems and techniques. I’ll take an idea from anywhere - Red Grooms, Elizabeth Murray, Ornette Coleman, Harold Finster, Matisse, Warhol, Earth Wind and Fire, David Bates, Phillip Glass, Roy Lichtenstein, Charles Mingus - it’s all fair game.

I am continuously working to surprise myself.