Spencer Finch
La Grande Jatte (Baby), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
33 3/4 x 27 5/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Baby), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
33 3/4 x 27 5/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Bouquet), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
29 3/8 x 25 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Bouquet), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
29 3/8 x 25 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Grass in the shade), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
52 3/4 x 19 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Grass in the shade), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
52 3/4 x 19 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Knitting), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
28 1/4 x 28 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Knitting), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
28 1/4 x 28 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Monkey), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
27 5/16 x 25 9/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Monkey), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
27 5/16 x 25 9/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Tree Leaves), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
25 13/16 x 26 7/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Tree Leaves), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
25 13/16 x 26 7/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Trumpeter's hat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
39 3/8 x 22 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Trumpeter's hat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
39 3/8 x 22 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Bustle), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
22 1/4 x 37 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Bustle), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
22 1/4 x 37 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Soldier's uniforms), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
26 5/8 x 34 3/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Soldier's uniforms), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
26 5/8 x 34 3/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Grass in the sun), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
18 7/8 x 42 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Grass in the sun), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
18 7/8 x 42 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Butterfly), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
46 1/16 x 33 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Butterfly), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
46 1/16 x 33 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Pipe), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
23 3/8 x 37 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Pipe), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
23 3/8 x 37 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (River, reflection of sailboat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
37 1/16 x 23 15/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (River, reflection of sailboat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
37 1/16 x 23 15/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Sky), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
42 15/16 x 23 1/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Sky), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
42 15/16 x 23 1/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Girl's hair), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
20 9/16 x 38 15/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Girl's hair), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
20 9/16 x 38 15/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Parasol), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
35 7/8 x 25 3/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Parasol), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
35 7/8 x 25 3/16 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Top hat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
73 5/16 x 10 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches
La Grande Jatte (Top hat), 2023
Acrylic on birch plywood panel
73 5/16 x 10 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches
Cummulus humulis (Île de la Grande Jatte), 2023
Scotch tape on museum board mounted to dibond
40 x 55 inches
La Grande Jatte—​Spencer Finch’s sixth solo exhibition at Rhona Hoffman Gallery—borrows its title from 19th century post-Impressionist Georges Seurat’s iconic painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884-86), at the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting was groundbreaking for its time due to its Pointillist technique developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, wherein dots of paint were applied to the canvas, creating an optical mix of color in the viewer’s eye. For La Grande Jatte at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Spencer Finch responds to Seurat’s pseudo-scientific artistic method to create 17 new paintings. Contrary to Seurat’s optical mixing method, Finch physically mixes the paint. These paintings continue and expand upon Finch’s legacy of exploring color, perception, and light.
Finch’s monochromatic irregular polygon paintings were formed by zooming in and cropping out identifiable or memorable moments of the historic painting, e.g., the monkey, parasol or top hat. Those crops were then analyzed to determine the number of colors used, as well as the quantity of that color used, to form that particular shape or motif. To create each painting, an ultra-high resolution photograph of the Georges Seurat painting was consulted. The total number of distinct paint colors found within each crop determined the number of sides of the corresponding painting as well as which colors were painted onto the sides of the shaped panels. Each crop was then overlaid with a 400 square grid and the amount of each paint color used was tallied and percentages calculated. The smaller the percentage of color, the shorter that side’s length. The percentages of the paint colors were then mixed together to produce the front facing color for each painting. Finally, when added together, the surface area of the 17 paintings on view, equals the surface area of the original Seurat canvas.
Whereas Seurat developed the technique of Pointillism, Finch has invented his own mathematical process to dictate the painting’s colors and panel shape, with the shape being theoretically malleable, in that there are many possible forms one can make from the given sides. Finch’s shaped panels clearly relate to monochromatic works by Ellsworth Kelly and Imi Knoebel, but also to Robert Morris, whose Box with the Sound of Its Own Making (1961) — with its recording of the sound of the making of the box playing within the box — serves as a structure that tells its own story, as do Finch’s paintings.
Finch’s La Grande Jatte exhibition delves deeply into an art historically significant painting, but one that is also particularly dear to Chicago. The renowned painting was acquired in 1924 by Frederic Clay and Helen Birch Bartlett of Chicago and gifted in 1926 to The Art Institute, where it continues to live today. Viewers who have seen this painting may also recall the gray painted wall behind it. The same Benjamin Moore ‘Gray Showers’ paint has been applied to the Rhona Hoffman Gallery walls, recreating the viewer’s experience at The Art Institute albeit with Finch’s deconstructed, stunning monochromes.