Charged with energy and physicality, Untitled from 2020 is an exemplary work by Spencer Lewis. The heavily worked and tactile surface of the present work is executed in swaths of bright, saturated pigment, roughly smeared across the picture plane. In slashes of colour that crisscross back and forth with visceral force, the composition of Untitled builds layer upon layer with unbridled and violent gesture.

Echoing the vigour of Abstract Expressionism and action painting, the present work simultaneously constructs and deconstructs space within the painting in a manner resonant with the rhythmic compositions of Hans Hoffman and the impasto layers of Willem de Kooning. Recognised for his works on cardboard and jute, Lewis has worked with a variety of media as means through which to explore and interrogate space. On a monumental scale, the raw, brute lines of oil, acrylic, and ink which smear, truck, and scoop the increasingly weathered surface to assemble dynamically painted windows into a plain of intersecting marks, arching and thrashing to form billowing compositions of rich colour.

Spencer Lewis received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008. His work is held in the collects ion of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Lewis currently lives and works in Los Angeles.