Troupe: Recent Landscape, Still Life, and Colorshape Paintings by Tad Spurgeon

January 22–March 31, 2008

Reception: Thursday, January 24, 5:30–7:30pm

 

Over the past decade, local artist, Tad Spurgeon has been exploring the traditional process of realistic oil painting used during the Renaissance. Through research and experimentation, he brings this educational process to a collection of work entitled Troupe.

This show offers examples of still life, landscape, and colorshape paintings, with attached stories of process and explanations of how the paintings were made. A portion of the exhibit is devoted to the evolution of the outdoor work done this summer at Button Bay. Where relevant, paintings are accompanied by in-progress photographs. Text panels are included which focus on his research into the materials used in traditional painting: what he learned and how he learned it.

The theme of Troupe, is the artist’s perennial search for a way of painting that is satisfying and his research into “the labyrinth” of Old Master's materials and techniques. In the last few years, Spurgeon has developed an ensemble of styles which, while different, use this difference to inform one another. In this collection of work, there are small still life paintings of simple objects which have been worked on over years, as well as outdoor landscape paintings completed in a few hours. A third style is the colorshape work, a kind of personal vacation from realism begun in acrylic and exhibited in the mid-eighties. Resumed again in the last few years, it is significantly livelier in the oil paint he now makes from raw materials.

The opening reception on Thursday January 24, from 5:30-7:30pm, will feature a free drawing for two $300 certificates. The lucky winners can walk away with a small Tad Spurgeon original or use a certificate toward the purchase of a larger work.

To complement the show, Tad Spurgeon returns to the Art Center on Saturday, February 9, for a special Meet-the-Artist presentation at noon. This presentation highlights the artist’s renowned teaching skills, providing the public with an opportunity to ask questions and share in a dialogue.

 

Generously sponsored by:

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