




Spring (3,563)
2016
Occupying more than two metres in height and over three and a half metres in width, Spring (3,563) presents an immersive field of green that rewards close and prolonged looking. Spencer Finch, known for his rigorous and poetic investigations of light, colour, and perception, here distilled the experience of spring into exactly 3,563 distinct shades of green, each matched to the colour of a newly emerged plant and applied as a single droplet of ink to paper. Arranged across twelve sheets installed as a unified whole, the work is at once a scientific exercise in chromatic cataloguing and an act of quiet wonder, translating the teeming abundance of the season into a visual language that feels both precise and overwhelming. At a distance, the thousands of individual droplets dissolve into something approaching the felt experience of looking into a canopy of fresh leaves, where no two surfaces are quite alike and the eye cannot settle on any single tone. This perceptual blurring is central to Finch's practice, which consistently explores the gap between measured observation and lived sensation. The sheer number of recorded shades also carries a philosophical weight, gesturing toward the effectively infinite gradations of colour that exist in the natural world and that human perception can only partially resolve. For collectors drawn to work that holds conceptual ambition and sensory richness in careful balance, this is a singular example of how rigorous process can produce something genuinely affecting.
- Medium
- Watercolour on paper
- Overall
- Spotted At
- Gallery · Galerie Nordenhake
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