Spencer H H - ARTIFICE VIADICTUM - 48x36" - Mixed Media on cradled wood panel
Mixed Media, wood stain and acrylic on panel.
Artist Statement
ARTIFICE VIADICTUM:
A busy urban overpass hides beneath its underside a lone performer. This practitioner of sun worship uses the light of an enchanted effigy to project an audience and stage around herself. A set, complete with scenery props and a scene partner, is draped over the austere structure. The silent lecturer casts a long, flickering shadow; an echo, hungrily beholding its counterpart, weighing her authority. The audience are arrayed decaying homunculus, melting like wax across the imagined architecture,—impressions of their creator’s vanity.
Bio:
Spencer Hanna-Howarth - Biography
Spencer Hanna-Haworth (Born September 1989 Toronto ON) Is a classically trained visual artist and illustrator based in Wakefield, Quebec, Canada. With a background in graphic novel illustration, his painting background originated in painted vignette narratives that blend Rockwellian humor and innocence with a theatrical counter-culture sensibility.
Last year he began a project “I’m Always Here”, working with people experiencing homelessness in Ottawa that began with outreach, grew into a visual journal, and ended with gallery portraits. The intention was to bridge the widening gap between the Civil Service and street classes in Ottawa, during twin health crises- viral and opioid.
Spencer is currently working to create a body of work over the next two years exploring the purview of theatrical performance and stage design in painting.
As a son of two stage actors, Spencer spent a deal of his childhood backstage or watching my family and family-friends perform from the sidelines. “Revelations of a Theater Brat” is a visual/dream testimonial of childhood experiences as a small observer in an audience of paying adults.