Tracy Spadafora

Dumpster with Red & Blue

Inspired by: Harvey Sadow, Fire and Flood/Sacred Sites

oil and encaustic on braced birch panel

14 x 11 x 1.5″

2023

When I saw Harvey Sadow’s Fire and Floods / Sacred Sites ceramic vessel I immediately felt a connection to the color and texture. This may have been because I had recently taken a photo of a metal garbage dumpster that had some similarities. I have been photographing worn, rusting dumpsters for the past few years as subjects for paintings and drawings, and the texture in Sadow’s piece seems to have a lot in common with the aged metal surfaces that I closely observe and meticulously recreate in my art. As Sadow’s vessel references the earth’s cycles of destruction and regrowth, I document the layers of deterioration of a metal vessel that carries waste.

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Tracy Spadafora

Growth

encaustic paint and oil on gessoed wood panel

8″ x 8″ x 1.5″

2023

This painting, from my Evolve series, departs from the more cognitive aspects of my work and employs the organic and playful nature of wax to render dramatic, mysterious, and meditative landscapes. With the intuitive vision presented in the paintings from this series, I seek to express the grandeur and fragility of the natural world. The addition of organic materials combined with the wax helps to enforce the connection to the natural environment.

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Tracy Spadafora

Rusty Dumpster

pastel on paper

21″ x 25″ x 1″

2023

“Rusty Dumpster” is from a series called, “Left Behind”, where I explore the concepts of transformation and passage of time through peeling paint, rusting metal, and other processes of corrosion and decay. I started to photograph, draw, and paint the surfaces of the dumpsters as a way of documenting the layers of wear – searching for a history within the marks. As I examine the colors, textures, and marks on the surface of these containers, I create new “landscapes” that embody the detritus of our place and time, and act as a record of the human footprint on our environment.

@tracyspadafora

Tracy Spadafora

Melting Glacier Popsicle

Inspired by: David Seltzer, Sea Salt/Lemon Sage Henry George Todd, Study of Strawberries

encaustic and collage on wood panel

12″ x 12″ x 1.5″

2024

Like the fruit in Henry George Todd’s Study of Strawberries, my relief painting of a frozen treat may seem appetizing at first glance. As Study of Strawberries includes a symbol of our own mortality, my popsicle, juxtaposed with glaciers, uses humor, (although not Good Humor), to reminder us of an existential issue of our time, global warming. As David Seltzer uses sensory stimulation in Sea Salt / Lemon Sage, I use blackberry scented melted wax, to stir up pleasing memories. But, the message revealed by the title and the background image suggests something that conflicts with any sense of pleasure.

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