Spencer Finch Transforms Junk Mail and Envelopes into Art at Lisson LA

Spencer Finch's exhibition 'Balboa of House and Garden' at Lisson Gallery in Los Angeles features over 50 works on paper, a skylight installation, and an outdoor sculpture. The show runs from June 26 to August 22, 2026. Central to the exhibition is the 'Gorgeous Nothings' series, inspired by Emily Dickinson's habit of writing poems on envelopes. Finch uses personal correspondence, junk mail, cardboard, and envelopes, transforming them with watercolor, pastel, pencil, and collage. Works include 'Gorgeous Nothing 14' (a flower on an envelope) and 'Gorgeous Nothing 48' (laundry on a clothesline). A site-specific skylight uses colored filters to evoke Dickinson's Amherst, Massachusetts. Outside, 'Wreck (Raft of the Medusa)' reimagines Théodore Géricault's painting using a repurposed dumpster, wood, rope, fabric, and a hatchet. The exhibition coincides with Finch's commission at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago—a wall of colored tiles. Finch, born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1962, studied at Rhode Island School of Design, Hamilton College, and Doshisha University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.