CANADA is excited to announce Afterpiece, an exhibition of new work by Spencer Lewis. The heavily impasto paintings are made of paper pulp, oil, acrylic, ground glass, found and cast objects and cotton cord. Materially driven, the work seems to emerge from the rough weave of jute and the flotsam of the studio floor. In a departure from past paintings, this body of work is united by a carefully selected palette of purples and creamy whites.
Driven by a procession of painterly activity, Lewis works forward from the background, culminating in a final gesture, often a sculptural element, that he refers to as the “punctum,” borrowed from Roland Barthes’ famous formulation of one piercing gesture. In fact, Lewis punctuates all over the place. Nothing is safe, not the floor, walls or any part of his canvases. Meanings are embedded into each work, like buried clues to inner monologues. The drama of the final mark is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride, where murky churns of paint hunker in a netherworld that gradually rises to the surface of the canvas, culminating in the final stroke – a kiss of light on a gold band.
My paintings are like parts of speech. They come together like language.
