Herbert Creecy’s dense and exuberant paintings employ a range of experimental techniques that were ahead of his time. Though widely known for his “squiggles”, the scope of Creecy’s oeuvre demonstrates his immense ingenuity and technical virtuosity. Wildly prolific, his imagery and influences were unbounded by traditional constructs. He often re-purposed and painted over canvases to unearth new compositions, pushing the spatial boundaries of the traditional picture plane. Creecy’s methodology allows his work to maintain its integrity and complexity in almost all orientations. What always remains is a pure painterly expression of an internal landscape.
Widely acknowledged as Atlanta's most renowned painter, Herb Creecy's “Southern-ness” gave him as much pride as lament; he was quoted to have often been disappointed with the limitations of the Atlanta arts scene. Yet, he never migrated nor disassociated from the regionality that was so integral to his identity. Abstract Expressionists like Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Robert Rauschenberg are rarely attributed to the South; their artistic careers were launched out of and driven by New York, their narratives often stripped of their geographical origins. Herbert Creecy maintained impressive artistic influence from his Atlanta base, where his creative mastery earned him a rightful place in the arc of art history.
