About
Biography
Corinne Spencer is a Brooklyn based artist working at the intersection of video, photography, and installation. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014. Her work has been performed and exhibited throughout the US, including a 2015 city-commissioned installation of her ongoing video work, HUNGER in Boston, MA, an exhibition with Samson Projects at NADA NY (New York, NY, 2016), Root Shock, a three person exhibition at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA, 2019), a two person show, Shanna Maurizi & Corinne Spencer, at La MaMa, La Galleria (New York, NY, 2019), and a solo exhibition, Splendor, at the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY, 2022) among others. Corinne is the recipient of several grants, awards, and fellowships including the Franklin Furnace Fund Award, two Foundation for Contemporary Arts grants, the MacDowell Fellowship, The Constance Saltonstall Fellowship, and an ongoing art residency with the Meerkat Media Collective, a renowned filmmaking group based in Brooklyn, NY.
Her solo exhibition, At The Threshold, explores the relationship between Black women, landscape, and spiritual awakening and opened as part of Cornell University’s Migrations Initiative at Cherry Gallery (Ithaca, NY) in 2023.
Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
2014 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
2010 Massachusetts College of Art and Design, BFA
EXHIBITIONS
2023 The Myth of Normal, MassArt Museum, Boston, MA (Forthcoming)2023 ANTI-VENOM, LMCC Arts Center at Governors Island, New York, NY (Forthcoming)
2023 At The Threshold, Cherry Gallery, Cornell Migrations Initiative, Ithaca, NY
2022 BACK 2 SCHOOL, Friend of a Friend, Denver, CO
2022 Sheltered, University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA
2022 Splendor, Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
2022 Untitled Business, Gallery 244, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA
2021 Biennial Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
2021 Nothing dared, nothing gained, Darla Ebanks Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Hermerica, Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY
2019 Root Shock, Kniznick Gallery, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
2019 Shanna Maurizi & Corinne Spencer, La MaMa Galleria, New York, NY
2018 Women Between Arts, The New School, New York, NY
2018 Cowlick, Moonmist, Houston, TX
2018 LUNA | FEM_bodied, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Pittsburgh, PA
2017 HUNGER, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Bronx, NY
2016 This Eternal Thread, Inner Fields, Brooklyn, NY
2016 Mother Salon, Lucid Body, New York, NY
2016 Stark Naked: Uncovering Bodies, Objects, and the Futility of Desire, Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA
2016 LANGUAGE PRODUCT, Boston Arts Academy, Boston, MA
2016 Samson Projects at NADA NY, New Art Dealers Alliance NY, New York, NY
2016 Divisions, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Program Space, New York, NY
2016 Like Muscle to the Bone, PearlArts, Pittsburgh, PA
2015 Hysteria, Hysterical Feminisms, Otion Front Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2015 HUNGER, Boston Arts Emerge Festival, commissioned by the City of Boston, Boston, MA
2013 St. Botolph Foundation Emerging Artists Exhibition, St. Botolph Foundation, Boston, MA
2012 Little Black Topsy and the Magical White Fairy Soap, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
2011 Little Black Topsy and the Magical White Fairy Soap, Oberon Theater, Cambridge, MA
2011 Little Black Topsy and the Magical White Fairy Soap, Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA
2010 Little Black Topsy and the Magical White Fairy Soap, The Pozen Center for Interrelated Media, Boston, MA
2010 EPHEMERA, The Pozen Center for Interrelated Media, Boston, MA
2010 States of Matter, The Pozen Center for Interrelated Media, Boston, MA
2010 Stephen D. Paine Scholarship Exhibition, Suffolk University Art Gallery, Boston, MA
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant, New York, NY2019 MacDowell Colony Residency, Peterborough, NH
2017 Franklin Furnace Fund Award, New York, NY
2016 Meerkat Media Collective, Filmmaking Residency, Brooklyn, NY
2016 Pearl Diving Movement Residency, PearlArts, Pittsburgh, PA
2014 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2014 sübSamsøn Residency, Samsøn Projects, Boston, MA
2013 St. Botolph Foundation Emerging Artists Award, Boston, MA
2010 Stephen D. Paine Scholarship for Emerging Artists, Boston, MA
Artist Statement
Bodies of Plenty: Spoils, 2013
The body is the universe.
My work is rooted in the black feminine body as it moves through space, unbound by time and history. I draw from a multitude of sources spanning the disciplines of dance, theater, performance art, film and sound to create lush, textured work which operates in the realm of emotion, sensation, and spiritual experience. Within this realm, the black feminine body becomes the container of the universe—the gateway, path, and vehicle through which I excavate the mystery, profanity, and magic of the interior landscape.
The interior landscape is rich in tension and contradiction. It is by turns measured and lawless, dangerous and sensuous, resilient and frail. I work with these tensions, stitching together artifice and authenticity, fantasy and reality, violence and desire, and the mythological and the mundane to create sensorial, tactile work which places both movement and material at its center.