Keith Spencer’s newest body of work immerses the viewer in an unexpected and refreshing experience of color. Spencer has a bold brush stroke and when combined with his expressive color choices, it produces a veritable visual feast for the eyes.
In his new show “Grounded in Color” intense local color as well as abstractions of those colors are abundant and they seem to calmly take you by the hand into their mesmerizing space. Spencer’s creative license is daring and gutsy with results that are full of life and energy.
“A big part of the creative process for me is continuing to grow and experiment. This latest body of work is very much in that vein. Using mainly local landscapes as inspiration and subject matter, many of these paintings are the result of asking myself ‘What if I try…’ The unifying concept in my work is an effort to present the viewer with a sense of the feeling of a place. Why does Tryon feel different than Saluda? They are both small mountain towns, but I think most people would agree they feel different. Rather than rendering the details of the elements in a landscape, I try to reduce it to elemental shapes and colors. In that way the work becomes as much about the paint as the subject,” Spencer says.
Spencer’s highly collected paintings can be found in galleries throughout the United States and Europe. He has been described as “both an expressive painter and a true colorist” by William Kortlander, Professor of Art at Ohio State University. His landscapes are frequently done in the alla prima tradition (one sitting) and feature North Carolina and South Carolina and specifically Tryon, where he now lives. He is included in the book by Edward Emory and Stephen Stinson called “Artists Among Us – 100 Faces of Art in Spartanburg” available at Barnes and Noble.
“Keith Spencer-Grounded in Color” opens at Skyuka Fine Art on May 23 with a reception from 5 – 8 p.m. The show runs through the end of June. Visit Skyukafineart.com or email info@skyukafineart.com for more information. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Contact Kim Nelson at the gallery at 828-817-3783.

– article submitted
by Kim Nelson