Bio
Jeff Spicer was born in Detroit, Michigan, and has made his home in Western Kentucky since 1971. He has pursued artistic interests from earliest childhood. After completing training in medical illustration at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, he studied theology at Logos Bible College earning an Associates Degree.


Spicer graduated Sigma Cum Laud from Murray State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and sculpture. In addition to this training he has studied with and taught numerous artists in both figurative art and portraiture. An award-winning artist, Spicer’s paintings are included in both private and corporate collections nationally and internationally.


After spending several years as a freelance artist and illustrator he established Wolf Studios, his professional fine art portraiture studio in 1992, where he has enjoyed great success as a commissioned portrait painter. Trained in the traditions of the realistic masters, Spicer is adept at rendering accurate, soulful images. With a childlike wonder and a personal philosophy founded in a theological and Native American background, Spicer is not content until every until every image reaches its artistic apex

Artist Statement
Though born in Michigan, I was raised in the lakes area of western Kentucky, and while the physical landscape was inspiring, the social surroundings were far harsher for a budding artist, much less a gay one. Having been raised in a blue collar climate where farming or jobs at one of the nearby industrial plants was the norm, announcing that I wanted to be an artist was met with almost the same enthusiasm as announcing I was gay. Just to complicate things further this area is also located in the middle of America’s Bible Belt, where strict protestant beliefs are not confined to the four walls of the church but are part of the cloth of the society itself. So, in an environment that was less than gay-friendly to the artistically inclined how I became a painter of the male nude isn’t just the story of my life but the heart of my work.


Even stranger to some is the fact that I am in much the same as those in my community, I share the same work ethics, many of the same values, and the same core beliefs. It’s from this soil that my art grows, I find no contradictions in being gay and Christian anymore than I find conflict in seeing the nude male body as a form of God’s created beauty, man after all was the crowning touch of creation itself.


For the past fifteen years I’ve been a successful portrait artist and though it’s work I enjoy doing I always find myself returning to explore the mystery of the male form and these are the fruit of my most recent labors. This body of work is peppered with various motivators, some are inspired by the scenic beauty of southern California and my native Kentucky, some by my love of music, some are a combination of my spiritual beliefs Christian and Native American, but throughout the central focus is always the male form.


I work from photographs and life, combining the figures and landscapes. I begin each painting with a detailed pencil sketch followed by watercolor under paintings to achieve better dark values. I then proceed to work up the values working from dark to light using both hard and soft pastels, gradually building up to six layers. I apply fixative in between all but the last two layers in which I do not apply any fixative to keep my dark and mid-tone values from shifting and maintain the integrity of the highlights. I work on heavy archer acid free hot press watercolor paper and use only the highest quality pigmented pastels to insure that these works will last for generations.