Jeff Spaulding (born in Chelsea, Michigan) is an American artist who is known for his elegant and poetic use and re-combinations of both natural and cultural artifacts that evoke issues of power, presence, magic, and violence. His finely crafted sculptures of polished wood are the manifestation of an artist who is deeply in tune with the natural world and the properties of his materials. Verging on representation, his abstract forms are situated in an uneasy state between the real and the imaginary. Stripped down, spare, and unadorned, his sculptures have an elemental primal quality that alludes both to forms found in the natural world, and to those made by man – tools, totems, weapons.
Recent exhibitions include: BPW Lending Library, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC; Vintage, Curator’s Office, Washington, DC; Corridor, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC; Catalyst: 35 Years of Washington Project for the Arts; The Katzen Art Center, Art Museum of the American University, Washington, DC; Closer to Home: The Corcoran 48th Biennial of Contemporary Art, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Mine, G Fine Art, Washington, DC; Highlights of the Collection, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Fifteen for Philip, Curator’s Office, Washington, DC; Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, a national touring exhibition; Lost & Found, G Fine Art, Washington, DC; Jeff Spaulding: Sculpture, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC; Monuments, The Kreeger Museum, Washington, DC; The Big Nothing Ou Le Presque Rien, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY; A Dialog with Nature, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; The Maryland Biennial, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Artist Residency Exhibition Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island, NY amidst numerous other exhibitions.
His work is in the public collections of International Art and Artists Collection, The Katzen Art Center, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Kreeger Museum, Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Jean Pigozzi Collection, The Artery Group Collection, The Washington Post, The Ukrainian House Museum, Kiev, Ukraine; Furioso Development Corporation and many important private collections. In addition to numerous prestigious residencies, he was been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the DC Commission on the Arts. He is represented by Curator’s Office, Washington, DC.
