http://www.chromatic.ca/en/artiste/david-spriggs-2/

Address:

Fonderie Darling
745 rue Ottawa
Montréal, Québec
H3C 1R8

https://twitter.com/stratachrome

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DOT DASH 3 GALLERY
April 4-June 4, 2013

Visit the Dot Dash 3 Online Exhibition

Critical Cartographies is the premiere exhibition revealing the two-dimensional cartographic studies of the Canadian/UK installation artist David Spriggs.

The work of David Spriggs lies in a space between two and three dimensions. His installations use multiple painted layered images in space to create unique ephemeral-like forms and fields of color that explore the contemporary representation and strategies of power, the symbolic notions of color, and the thresholds of form and perception.

While Spriggs is primarily known for these large scale three-dimensional installations artworks, the exhibition Critical Cartographies provides insight into the topographical relationship of his work to form and space. These artworks map the cross-sectioning of his subjects, which serve as important blueprints for understanding the final placement and mapping of these forms through space. Through these studies we witness a different relationship to the immaterial form than in his installations. The delicate lines of these cartographies hold an aesthetic that contrasts the boundless immaterial subjects of his installations. Here form and space are delineated in two dimensions. There is a deconstruction and compression of the overlapping images as they shift from three dimensions into two-dimensional contours. This process of map making creates a new perspective that functions differently from linear perspective. Spriggs refers to this perspective as a strata-perspective: where overlapping multiple image planes, or cross-sections, collectively give the impression of depth.

In contrast to topographical maps, Spriggs’ work maps, not the terrain, but the immaterial symbolic forms of power. The use of symbolism has a central role in the maintenance and construction of an ideology that constructs and supports power within our culture. Each of his installation artwork draws on the subtle and indirect ways that power is manifested and represented. Axis of Power, for example, represents power as the embodiment of an ephemeral and immaterial large-scale form in such a way that it also creates a phenomenological reaction with the viewer. In other works, such as Stratachrome, Spriggs reveals a concept of power through the symbolism of color and contemporary media imagery. The exhibition Critical Cartographies presents a selection of imagery from both of these installations and other large scale works.

David Spriggs is currently based in Montreal. He was born in 1978 in Manchester, England, and immigrated to Canada in 1992. He has recently exhibited work at the Abrons Arts Center in New York, the Prague Biennial 5, the Louis Vuitton Gallery in Macau, the Sharjah Biennal 9 in the UAE, and various exhibitions throughout Canada. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Quebec. Spriggs received his Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University in Vancouver. He also studied at the Central St. Martin’s College of Art in London, England and the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.

October 12, 2012 – November 3, 2012
Opening Reception: October 12, 6-8 pm

Residency Unlimited and the Abrons Arts Center are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in New York by Montreal-based artist David Spriggs. For the last decade, Spriggs has been examining the particular symbolic, perceptual, social, political, and historical connotations of color in the monochromatic installation series Stratachrome.
Blue is a site-specific installation created for the Abrons Arts Center Gallery that addresses the physicality and perception of the color blue. Whilst referencing Yves Klein’s International Klein Blue (IKB) and the Light and Space artists of the sixties, Blue imagines new concepts of hue in space manifesting the color as a graspable physical object. Embracing the spectacle of “blueness,” the installation delivers a destabilizing and powerful experience. As writer John Hampton notes: “Spriggs works primarily in phenomenological experience; he creates stunningly convincing illusions of airy, voluminous objects that we enter visually.”
Blue is created with multiple layers of painted transparent film hung at specific intervals within the gallery. The blue pigment is carried through the space on the transparencies that, once lit, create a blur of three-dimensional color. The result is a field of an intense saturated tint that radiates from the architecture with no defined form or boundaries. A sense of the ephemeral is manifested in the work suggesting the sky. The installation is at once ethereal and concrete. One wall of the gallery is mirrored, creating a reflection so that the blue is not only carried through the room, but beyond into reflected space.

David Spriggs, a Montreal-based artist, was born in 1978 in Manchester, England. He received his Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University in Vancouver. He undertook student residencies at Central St. Martins College of Art in London, England (1999), and the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany (2006). He has recently exhibited work at the Prague Biennial 5, the Louis Vuitton Gallery in Macau, and at the Sharjah Biennal 9 in the United Arab Emirates. Spriggs’ exhibitions in Canada include shows at Galerie de l’UQAM, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and Rodman Hall Arts Centre. His work is in the permanent collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Quebec.

David Spriggs’ residency with Residency Unlimited is made possible with support from Canada Council for the Arts. Set within the framework of RU’s partnership with the Abrons Arts Center, the exhibition Blue is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street)
New York, NY 10002

Updates include:

- completely redesigned website
- new images added to all projects
- texts, video, and images for a specific project now appear together on one page
- website now functions on all devices
- website re formats to all screen sizes
- slideshows are swipe sensitive on touch screens

Please contact art@davidspriggs.com if you have any comments or issues with the new website.

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