Busacca Gallery

Ford Crull's 'Midsummer Night Ruby 2', created in 2010, is a captivating painting that explores the depths of emotion and spirituality through the medium of oil, oil stick, and enamel on canvas. The artist, born in 1952, expresses his philosophy about his work, stating, "My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the picture plane. The ambiguity of the image is central to my expression of life in art." This unique piece measures 60 × 48 × 1 1/2 inches (152.4 × 121.9 × 3.8 cm) and stands as a testament to Crull's distinctive medium. The artwork is hand-signed by the artist and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity issued by the gallery. While the frame is not included, the painting bears the signature "FC" for Ford Crull. Ford Crull, an American artist, has gained recognition with his work being collected by major institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His exhibitions, including "FORD CRULL: The Figurative Work 1974-2018" at Cross Contemporary Art Projects in 2018 and "Ford Crull: A New Lexicon" at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art in 2017, showcase the evolution of his artistic journey. The painting is currently housed at the Mazlish Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, and Burlington.

Ford Crull explores the expressive power of personal and cultural symbols in a series of densely painted and vividly colored compositions. He uses identifiable images such as hearts, wings, crosses, and the human figure, as well as geometrical emblems and abstract forms whose meanings are less explicit. Words, in the form of cryptic, fleeting phrases, also animate Crull’s pictorial world. Crull employs a myriad of symbols which variously imply a sexual unfolding, romantic suffering, occult wisdom, and transcendental release. These symbols coexist in a psychic atmosphere in which they overlap, dissolve, and reappear with a kind of furious insistence. The heart is among the most frequent of these symbols, combining love on both physical and spiritual levels. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Dayton Art Institute, and the Brooklyn Museum. His paintings were included in the important 1989 Moscow exhibition, “Painting After the Death of Painting,” curated by Donald Kuspit. Recent exhibitions have included shows in Shanghai, London, Milan, New York and Seattle.