The Outer — from the Inner (Emily Dickinson's bedroom, dusk) – Works

© Spencer Finch. Image courtesy of the James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY. For educational purpo…

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Images(9)

Artist/Maker Spencer Finch (American, born 1962)

Date2018

MediumSeven framed archival inkjet photographs

DimensionsImage (each): 15 × 15 in. (38.1 × 38.1 cm) Sheet (each): 15 1/2 × 15 1/2 in. (39.4 × 39.4 cm) Frame (each): 17 5/8 × 17 5/8 × 1 5/8 in. (44.8 × 44.8 × 4.1 cm) Overall (running length): 17 5/8 in. × 12ft. 3 in. (44.8 cm × 3m 73.4 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2019.9.a-g

Not on view

Description"Finch has long been inspired by Dickinson’s poetry, and admires what he calls her “super sensitivity” to the world around us. Over the summer [of 2018], the artist re-read all 1,789 poems that Dickinson wrote in her lifetime. Like Dickinson, Finch is interested in making the abstract tangible and defining experience without confining it, while simultaneously acknowledging the limits of observation and the impossibility of objective memory. Many of the drawings in this show explore the ephemeral and fundamentally ineffable qualities of light and color in the same New England landscape that shaped Dickinson’s elliptical language... The Outer — from the Inner (Emily Dickinson’s bedroom, dusk), a suite of seven photographs created in Dickinson's Amherst bedroom, captures the view through her window as the sun sets. The photographs follow the window’s transformation from a transparent pane of glass into a mirror. Over the course of the day, the initial view of the Massachusetts woods outside gradually gives way to a reflection of the poet’s bedroom inside. The work echoes an earlier photographic series Finch completed in his Gowanus studio—drawing parallels between the poet’s bedroom and the artist’s studio as similar sites of contemplation and artistic fecundity." (SOURCE: James Cohan Gallery, "The Brain is deeper than the sea" press release, https://www.jamescohan.com/exhibitions/spencer-finch3, accessed 3/11/19) Emily Dickinson, The Outer — from the Inner: "The Outer — from the Inner Derives its Magnitude — 'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according As is the Central Mood — The fine — unvarying Axis That regulates the Wheel — Though Spokes — spin — more conspicuous And fling a dust — the while. The Inner — paints the Outer — The Brush without the Hand — Its Picture publishes — precise — As is the inner Brand — On fine — Arterial Canvas — A Cheek — perchance a Brow — The Star's whole Secret — in the Lake — Eyes were not meant to know."

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