Nathan Spoor

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Nathan Spoor is an American artist, writer, and curator best known for his acrylic paintings and for helping popularize the Suggestivism art movement. He studied at Abilene Christian University, earning a BFA in Painting and Graphic Design with a minor in Drawing and Illustration, and later completed an MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He began painting in his second year of college and, after graduating, worked as a graphic designer, eventually becoming art director at his firm. In 2001 he moved from Texas to Southern California.

Spoor’s first public work was a mural in a children’s museum at the Grace Cultural Center. He exhibited at the Six Degrees festival in Los Angeles in 2004 and had a feature in SF Weekly for his 2005 show at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco. His first solo show, The Intimate Parade, was at the Earl McGrath Gallery in Los Angeles. He founded the Deity Group, a marketing and branding agency, and co-founded the Venice Contemporary Art Gallery in 2007, where he also served as curator. He has shown at numerous galleries in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and beyond.

Spoor has been active as both an artist and curator. He participated in the 100 Artists See Satan show at the Grand Central Art Center in 2010 and marked ten years in Los Angeles with the Full X Moon exhibition that year. In 2013 he curated Kindred in New York and co-curated Risque {dirty little pictures} at the Long Beach Museum of Art, which drew a large opening crowd. In 2015 he co-curated Masterworks: Defining A New Narrative at the Long Beach Museum of Art, a show that drew record attendance.

A key figure in Suggestivism, Spoor helped define the movement as a broader idea of beauty and purpose. His early representative work includes the 2008 painting Suddenly. He organized the Suggestivism exhibitions at the CSUF Grand Central Art Center in 2011, in Bold Hype Gallery in New York City in 2012, and at the Acquario Romano in Rome in 2013. He wrote Suggestivism: A Comprehensive Survey of Contemporary Artists and has contributed to Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, and Surfer’s Journal. He was featured on the cover of Bl!sss Magazine in August 2009 and has created artwork for the band Coheed and Cambria.