"Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes the color of both. Viewed from a hill-top it reflects the color of the sky; by near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to uniform dark green in the body of the point."

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Spencer Finch visited Walden on March 13, 2007 to observe the surface of the pond. In contrast to slowly melting ice observed by Thoreau on an earlier March 13, Finch encountered illusively changing colors that are closer to Thoreau’s observations in warmer months. Finch’s collage represents the artist’s perception of the pond’s color on the morning of his visit. The work is made of pieced-together reproductions of water from various paintings by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet. In ink, Finch calls out small sections of color as observed from different vantage points at different times throughout the morning. These markings resemble Thoreau’s well known survey of the pond’s size and depth that he conducted during his first winter at Walden by making a multitude of holes in the ice and dropping a line to measure the depth.

Spencer Finch’s recent visit to Walden spurred another work, 2 hours, 2 minutes, 2 seconds (Wind at Walden Pond, March 12, 2007), which is included in his mid-career retrospective, Spencer Finch: What Time Is It on the Sun? currently on view at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA. An earlier project, Sunlight in an Empty Room (Passing Cloud for Emily Dickinson, Amherst MA, August 28, 2004 is based on his observations of light during a visit to the poet’s home. Finch’s work has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Brandström-Stene Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden; Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany; ArtPace, San Antonio, TX; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; and numerous group exhibitions including the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY and Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project, at The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; and A Tribute To Paul Cezanne, Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York, NY. He earned his BA in comparative literature at Hamilton College, NY and an MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI.

For more information: www.spencerfinch.com