Is it a Bird, a Plane, No! It’s Art!

If someone were to ever ask me if I wanted to see what a comet, in moving form, looked like, I would probably have to respectfully decline. Considering that the only images I have ever seen of a comet were in movies such as Armageddon or Deep Impact where parts of the Earth are either inevitably destroyed or the comet is depicted as an approaching Doomsday symbol, you could imagine my apprehension of actually wanting to experience the foreign notion of not the destructive powers of an astroid, but instead of the beauty.  I know, you’re thinking, why would I ever think something that could end civilization would be ever be beautiful?  David Spriggs has managed to change my mind ..

David Spriggs, an England native born 1978 in Manchester, has managed to capture images through his painted art that only God himself, and alright, maybe Superman!, would be able to attest to. Earning his M.F.A in sculpture from Concordia University in Manchester (2007), following a B.F.A in Visual Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver (2000), Spriggs set out to combine his paint and sculpture techniques learned and infuse them onto transparent film to create a 3-D effect that would bring his viewers inside his cosmic world whilst simultaneously making his viewers aware of their minuteness in comparison to the Universe.

Spriggs’ Mission Statement:

An exploration into concepts of space and the relationships between the thresholds of the 2 and 3 dimensions; the immaterial form; perception; deconstruction; time; movement including speed and stasis; phenomena; the body; the appropriation of symbols; and the strategies of power.

How his Comets are created:

Topographical cross-sections of a subject are painted or drawn onto sheets of transparent film.  The sheets are specifically spaced and hung apart to reveal the appearance of three-dimensional forms in a state of suspension. Like linear perspective is to the 2D world; layered perspective allows the possibility of new representations through this illusionary image space. The multiple image planes together establish a perspective in which the viewer can alter their viewing angle to change the ‘image form’ as one walks around the piece. It is a dematerialization of the picture plane through the combining of multiple picture planes.

Solo Exhibitions:

-	‘The Threshold of Form’, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto	Nov. 22nd – Dec 30th, 2008
-	‘The Emergence of Perception’ , Art Mûr Gallery, Montreal	Nov. 15th- Dec 20th, 2008
-	‘Archaeology of Space‘, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario	2008
-	‘Archaeology of Space‘, The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta Curator Joan Stebbins	2008
-	‘The Paradox of Power’, Art Mûr, Montreal	2007
-	‘Escalator’, Concordia University, Montreal	2006
-	‘The Aesthetics of Speed’, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto	2005
-	‘Lucid Forms’, Third Avenue Gallery, Vancouver	2002

Via Illusion 360