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.