
Back To Kansas
2015
Saturated expanses of magenta, ochre, and cerulean dissolve into one another across this large-scale aquatint, conjuring the quality of light as it exists in memory rather than in direct observation. Spencer Finch's "Back To Kansas," completed in 2015, draws on the artist's long-standing investigation into the phenomenology of color and perception, here rendered through the layered tonal gradations that aquatint and chine collé allow with particular nuance. The collé elements introduce subtle textural variation across the surface, giving the work a quiet material depth that rewards sustained looking from close range. The title invites an obvious literary reference, yet Finch resists illustration entirely. Rather than depicting a place, the composition evokes the psychological sensation of return, the way certain light conditions trigger something lodged in feeling rather than fact. At 109.2 by 152.4 centimeters, the work commands significant wall presence, and its soft atmospheric shifts read differently as a viewer moves across the room, behaving more like natural illumination than a fixed image. This responsiveness to distance and position is characteristic of Finch's practice, where scientific observation and subjective experience are treated as equally valid forms of knowing. Published by Paulson Fontaine Press in an edition of one, this is effectively a unique work on paper, carrying both the intimacy of the print medium and the singularity of an object that exists nowhere else. It arrives hand-signed by the artist, and its scale, rarity, and conceptual rigor make it a compelling acquisition for collectors drawn to work that engages seriously with light, color theory, and the limits of representation.
- Medium
- Color Aquatint and chine colle
- Sheet
- Signed
- Yes
- Location
- Paulson Fontaine Press, Berkeley, CA
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