Eric Spencer

White Columns is pleased to present Words on my Mind, a solo exhibition by New Jersey-based artist Eric Spencer (b. 1969). The exhibition focuses on photo documentation of Spencer’s early cutout text works, made between the late 1980s and early 1990s, which were taken by the artist’s mother Doris Spencer in and around their home in rural New Jersey.

Spencer’s work is marked by a profound fascination with alphabetical characters, an affinity that developed very early in his life. As a toddler, Spencer displayed traits of hyperlexia, learning to recognize and read aloud letters and words from ambient text like license plates and juice cartons before he truly began to talk. He spent hours playing quietly with his favorite toys, magnet letters, moving them around a magnetic board. As a young child Doris recalls him fashioning “letters out of Play-Doh and food and even out of men’s long socks,” overcoming his fear of a swimming pool by placing his magnetic letters on the ladder before jumping in, and writing short stories personifying alphabetical and numerical symbols who had familiar adventures like playing in the park and going to the market.

In his early teens Spencer began to create cutout text installations with materials available around the house: construction paper, Styrofoam and Scotch tape. These elaborate installations borrowed phrases from his own life, including notes picked up around his family’s home and titles of favorite albums, films and television shows. Spencer would freehand cut letters in one of the dozens of fonts he has memorized, and create highly accurate reproductions of logos including fonts, symbols, and imagery. The paper cutouts were then arranged in a web of Scotch tape and often suspended from his bedroom ceiling, hanging in midair like the opening credits of a film. These fleeting installations typically existed no more than a day. Doris documented those she could with a 35mm camera, and Spencer himself often made an appearance in the frame. Though they never discussed his motivations, she later reflected that Spencer had “captioned his life.” This collaboration ended when Spencer moved to his own home in his 20s.

Eric Spencer continues to work as an artist in watercolor and ceramic, and makes cutout text for himself, family and friends, and community events. Since 2023 Spencer has been an artist at Studio Route 29, a supported art studio centering the creative practices and perspectives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. His cut paper installations are the subject of the book 𝘔𝘺 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 published by Beauty Books in 2024. An expanded edition is set for release in the Fall of 2026 in conjunction with this exhibition. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Beauty Gallery, Art Yard, Finnbar, and Flemington DIY, NJ, Make Studio, MD, and Walpole, ME, and his work has been featured as part of the Sincerely Summertime series at Summertime, NY.