Hall Spassov: Family
Bringing our singular aesthetics together offers the viewer a new context from which to view a seemingly traditional style (Hall) or a more urban contemporary style (Spassov). It is a setting aside of ego that allows us to honor the contribution of the other... - Hall & Spassov
Husband and wife artists, Erik Hall and Amy Spassov, combine their individual practices to create a whole new world steeped in careful details. Their two styles, while being quite disparate on first look, meet in the middle with comprehensive and painstakingly thorough brush strokes.
The work starts with the wild imaginings of Spassov (who paints in acrylic). Spassov says of her practice, "I can release all of my ideas, thoughts and feelings, making sense of it all through my work...It’s often like assembling a puzzle without knowing the image. I find it along the way, adding and subtracting images and marks, changing the colors, until my restless mind is satisfied."
Once she fills most of the panel, Hall (who paints in oil) will redefine Spassov's shapes and characters, often canceling many of the details. Hall uses an adept process of laboriously layering common colors with unlikely ones as his basis for creating gesturing organic forms, set amongst still, yet suggestive landscapes; compositions that speak with a silence.
