Transcript for Episode 169 – Sculptor + Installation Artist, David Spriggs (Canada)

Recorded April 1, 2021
Published May 4, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/sculptor-installation-artist-david-spriggs-canada/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Could you pronounce your name correctly for me?

David Spriggs 0:14
David Spriggs

Matthew Dols 0:16
So you’re in Vancouver?

David Spriggs 0:18
Yes, I’m in Vancouver.

Matthew Dols 0:20
And one of the first things I always ask people is like a little bit about their background. So childhood, were your parents creative? Was it some schooling they brought you into? Like, how did you even get to the point of being creative?

David Spriggs 0:31
That’s quite a big question. Actually, my parents have really been quite encouraging to me over the years, even my dad helps me out every day at the studio. So back when I was young, I remember my mom teaching me linear perspective, quite a young age, I think it was might have been before. But they’ve always been encouraging. And I think that’s one of the reasons I felt like I could become an artist.

Matthew Dols 0:57
Good to have good parents. What did they do?

David Spriggs 1:00
Did were the linear perspective, I don’t remember learning that until like high school. I remember just drawing a straight line, the horizon line. And, you know, just drawing some train tracks going into the distance, which, you know, seems quite simple, but I think it was, I mean, thinking about perspective is one of the things I think about now with my work. Okay, well, let’s just jump right into that, then. So your work Now, keep in mind, I have not personally seen it in real life. So give me a little bit of a sort of a technical standpoint of what I’m seeing, I mean, I’ve looked at Red the stuff like, it seems like sheets of plastic of some sort that with a metal structure. And then of course, creative lighting, it looks quite different. Because sometimes I’ve used Plexiglas, sometimes transparent film, sometimes class, each project, I choose the material to whatever I think would be best for the subject matter. What I’ve done is they’ve taken like a transparent plane, and either drawn or painted on the surface, and then layered it with another sheet behind a space depart and to, you know, as many layers deep as I want to kind of create the sense of sort of, like holographic like, form in space. Okay, wait, just to be clear, because when I saw this work, don’t take this. Personally, I apologize. If you take your fits to this. I assumed it was somehow digitally created in some way, like, did you designed it in a computer and you sort of like either printed it on an inkjet printer, I don’t even know what you could do how you could do that. But that somehow basically, the design and layout was done in computers, but you’re saying you hand do all of these? Yeah, almost every single one. So yeah, on my wall at the studio, it’s very much a painting process, I often use spray paint to do many of the works to give it that kind of form. without boundaries, the image kind of bleeds into the sheet behind so that when you’re looking simultaneously at all these sheets, it kind of looks like one form, rather than looking at, you know, layers of images. Sometimes I have used digital methods to reach certain goals to kind of help me figure out the process of what would go on to each sheet. But usually, this is like a very simple thing. And then I would just basically afterwards, like, you know, use my artistic ability to just kind of make up the rest of the image. All right, that’s quite an ability. How long do these because some of these things have been really big. So like, on average, like, how long does it take you to produce these depends, I’d say anywhere between like, a month and six, seven months. This is an artwork, I made all strata Chrome, which took me probably about six months, there’s a large green one that’s always 55 foot wide. It’s quite an enormous thing. If you actually take the surface area, all those sheets side by side, I think you could wrap up quite a significant building around surface area. So if you think of it as a painting, it’s, you know, it’s probably one of the largest paintings in the world. Okay, taking a step back, how did you even come to this process? Because, like, I’m going to, I’m going to make this very personal to me. When I was in school, I remember doing ideas like this with lithographic film in the darkroom where we would take multiple images and then we constructed little boxes that we basically made layers to try and give it some sense of three dimensionality.

Matthew Dols 4:50
How did you come to it and then sort of how did you make it so it’s your, your thing, your style?

David Spriggs 4:57
Well, I’ve come more from a painting background. You know, I used to like to do kind of more traditional, like oil painting. I was always inspired by the old masters. And, you know, my work had a sense of tradition to it. At one point, I thought, like, how can painting become something completely different? Like, you know, how can you take paint off the surface, like into space, I’ve done a lot of sculpture previously to even stone sculpture, I thought it’d be really amazing to, you know, somehow capture paints in space. And then, when I was a teenager, I had made a lot of prints which were done with four color separation process, you know, cyan, yellow, magenta, black. And to see these different transparencies, I could see, you know, the image is created with layers, every image we see is actually layered, whether it’s on the screen or, or printed. And we see all those layers simultaneously at one, and I thought it’d be interesting to pull that kind of image apart, and it just kind of started to make sense to use it as a painting process, you know, using transparencies to kind of capture that paint on the surface, give it form. Now, again, I apologize if this comes off as offensive, but I don’t mean to defensively I promise.

Matthew Dols 6:22
I’ve had many conversations these days with artists and curators and galleries and talking about like the idea of sort of having a style. So like, you have this very distinct style, like if I ever see a large scale layered with beautiful creative lighting, I’m like, that’s a David’s breaks, it’s gotta be, or the guys copying David’s breaks. So is that to your benefit? Like, do you ever get bored with it? Do you ever be like God, I really just want to paint a canvas every day.

David Spriggs 6:54
Actually, I think the there’s an enormous potential in layering as a technique, I think, you know, when I see painting, as there’s a million ways to paint, and we can see that by the phenomenal painters out there, but how do you set yourself separate from them? And how do you, you know, photography to like, how do you make a photo that’s really different that people can see. So I think it’s kind of important to, in a sense, have a bit of a style. And even if you deviate a little bit, artwork, to artwork, from that style, I think it’s, it helps as an artist to kind of just stand out. And, you know, we see so many images. And so there’s just so much media now is blinding. And I think everyone that has a phone now, you know, posts things online. And so I think images are less and less valued, imagined back in, like Renaissance times, you know, you go to the nearest church, where most of the paintings would be, and people would probably spend as much time with these paintings as we would spend with a movie now, that kind of captivation, that kind of focus that we would have a one time on images, I think is completely gone. I think people don’t even look at an image for more than a second. Now I remember people walking through the live, walking by the most important paintings in history without stopping. And I think it’s sad that that happens. And I think actually, that’s one of the reasons now that I make work that requires time, you know, you cannot just experience my work in a second unless you see it online, is something that requires the viewer to kind of spend the time to actually walk around it, because it’s that kind of walking around the work that gives the form to it, you know, otherwise, it’s just images that’s flat. But through walking around you, you know, you get all these different perspectives that kind of create create an image. I agree with what you’re saying. And I’m sure COVID and all the other travel restrictions has made it a bit difficult for exhibitions of things that need to be experienced. However, your images also like your documentation of your work. So on your website, social media, all these different places. It is the most beautiful clickbait like I mean, every time I see an image that’s yours, I’m like, Ooh, that’s that that’s stunning. Like, because not only do you like create this very theatrical thing, but you would light it beautifully. You photograph it beautifully. It’s like you really create this beautiful social media imagery.

Well, thank you. I mean, I think documentation of any orcs really important. I think that’s something I did actually learn at school. You know, I do actually like to take a lot of photos. I think over the years have become better documenting my work. And I think even when I’m installing an artwork now I’m really aware of, you know, social media being the way that most people experience the work. So, I do want that if someone walks into, to see one of my artworks and takes a picture, it’s going to also look good in social media. So I have to pay attention to not just my artwork, but what’s behind it, what might be reflected or, you know, it’s a lot of things to consider. And it actually, in a way makes me more aware and of making an artwork that really functions best for the viewer in a way. So honestly, actually, to see my works in person really, is so much better than seeing it in social media. It’s like I feel creative, always frustrated, that people experience my work through through social media or just through my website. But it’s a compromise. Regarding take pictures of my work, I always like to try and have a viewer in the image to kind of situate the person to give me the sense of the scale, to give you the sense of what it might be like to stand in front of one of the works.

Matthew Dols 11:19
Well, one of the things that I wonder about your works, because everything I’ve seen of your works is colossal. So how do you make a living doing that?

David Spriggs 11:29
Basically invest everything I make back into my work.

Matthew Dols 11:33
Okay, no, no, take a step back. So the works are huge. So I mean, it’s not like somebody with an apartment is going to buy one of these like, so your your market is a very niche market, because it’s going to be an institution, or it’s going to be somebody with a massive collection or somebody that can store this thing somewhere. I mean, so like, you’ve got a I’m assuming people can buy them. But then or are you commissioned to them? So basically, are you paid in advance to produce the things then it then it sort of just goes into a collection or whatever it like? So how does that sort of happen?

David Spriggs 12:11
Well, usually I try and think about what I want to make, you know, I have ideas for lots of artworks that I want to make in the future. And most of the time, I don’t really want to wait for someone to just say, here’s some money and making so easily just make it, I find the materials and just do it. And then a lot of the exhibitions I’ve had are nonprofit, you know, I might make something huge, but that’s quite often just self funded. You know, I do, obviously sell my work to you, which allows me to do different things. Sometimes they receive grants from the government, which allow me to do different things, but I don’t usually want finances to restrict me, you know, because I think if you wait for something, your whole life, you’ll never do anything. And you don’t always need a lot of money to make things he can do some amazing stuff with just a single can of paint and a wall. It’s just what you decide to do with that, that time. I think time is more valuable in a way.

Matthew Dols 13:13
I agree. But I’m always sort of riding that balance of like, How much money do you put into something and how much money do you have to spend on the certain thing, because it’s tough because I’m a little bit of a material snob and I can tell you you are even though you’re acting like you’re not, you have a little bit of material because like you have chosen very particular materials to work with. And you can’t really achieve this goal with just any transparent material. So like it does have a good cost card cost to it that you can’t avoid

David Spriggs 13:47
is different. Like if I do receive some sort of financing, you know, whether it’s from a sale or commission or, like as mentioned from the government grant, it would allow me to do a bigger piece. I do have some material that I saved from previous projects. And then sometimes, you know, let’s say I just had $10 I might just decide to use that $10 to buy you know just some papers sketchbook and I think he can still do some interesting things. I’ve always tried to maximize what I could do for each project with the finances I have and the time and the space. I really try my best to you know, there’s epic a project as possible.

Matthew Dols 14:34
Okay, and I love that about you. However, on your website, there are only epic projects so that so so what do you do other things that people that are available for people like at different price points kind of things? Or do you only do the large scale epic pieces.

David Spriggs 14:53
I do some other pieces to what’s on my website is just some of my favorite work. So you know I have made different artworks before For some commissioned projects based on some of my work to learn some private collections, but I think it’s just a matter of the time to do each thing. And what I want to do as well,

Matthew Dols 15:13
indeed, okay, so as I said, I have not personally experienced your work in real life. Is there anything additional? So there’s the sculpture itself, there’s a beautiful light design that is somehow sort of integral to the piece as well. Is it sound sound any other sort of senses involved in it?

David Spriggs 15:33
No, I usually don’t like to have sound, I think, for me, the best artworks are really like he’s stripped of everything that’s not needed to be there. For me, I just like the stillness of it. I think it’s silence mentioned, the bombardment of media overseas. Now, it’s the same with sound, it’s noisy. I think people want if I had that kind of time to really just kind of mute the rest of the sounds of the world and just stay focused on what they’re looking at. And so I usually don’t have sounds, I thought about it. But I think too many installation artists at the moment use kind of a droney kind of sound, which I find a little bit frustrating. And it’s all I can hear. So I don’t really want music, because I feel like that’s something extra. So I’ve just kind of just just focused on just the basics of what’s required.

Matthew Dols 16:31
Well, I can imagine like some if it’s on like mylar or something that moves, they’d like maybe like a little wind in the space, just so there’s a little motion in it kind of thing.

David Spriggs 16:40
Yeah, there actually are, it is a little bit of motion, just people walking around the work, just the kind of subtle effect is a little bit of reflection and kids a nice kind of little glimmer, and just that kind of slight vibration of the imagery is quite nice, too.

Matthew Dols 16:57
All right. So you’re you’re making these monumental works. How do you store all these? Are they are they all sold? Or do you have like a storage bin like a container holding all this stuff?

David Spriggs 17:10
Some of them are sold, and then other ones. Actually, the large scale installations, I can roll all the film together. So it’s collapse. Significant later is much, much smaller space. Storage is always an issue, though. I think it’s for any sculptor out there. They understand the complications of it. Indeed,

Matthew Dols 17:35
yes. I mean, I’m thinking like, so you said some of these pieces are glass as well. Like, what about transportation and all that kind of stuff?

David Spriggs 17:42
Yeah, that’s definitely an issue, especially for the larger pieces. Usually, I don’t like to send things unless I absolutely have to. But the large pieces like the installations return the transparency, travel really quite easily. So I’m not worried about that. Just general art shippers, fine.

Matthew Dols 18:02
You’re assuming we all can just afford art shippers, but that’s fine. They’re not cheap. I’ve used them. They’re lovely. They’re amazing. They do a great job. But boy, they’re expensive.

David Spriggs 18:14
Yeah. But usually, if I’m sending things to somewhere, it’s usually the gallery or living museum that would fit the bill for shipping. So I don’t have to think about that.

Matthew Dols 18:25
I understand that, as usual, people who have museum and gallery exhibitions, that’s good. So speaking of that, so you’ve had you have had gallery representation. I’m always fascinated because like, in my career, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now. And I’ve only had like one gallery and it was kind of a joke. So like, I’m not even gonna equate that. So like, how did gallery representation come about? And then do you have any like good stories, bad stories about sort of the experience of being a gallery artist,

David Spriggs 19:01
I’ve got good and bad stories. Let’s go to be careful what I say. It’s really difficult to talk about galleries. You know, I’ve been screwed over by some galleries, which I think artists have to be careful about. It’s I think being an artist is kind of a risky profession because sic you quite willingly you know, want to show places but especially as a young artists, you got to be quite careful. It’s very easy to be taken advantage of. And so it’s better to sometimes not exhibit somewhere than to jump into something.

Matthew Dols 19:39
Okay, could you be more specific on your screwed over stories, because, well, because a lot of people, a lot of young artists and even you know, just general naive mid career artists such as myself might be like, oh, a gallery wants to represent me amazing and just sign it like great. I want to be able to say I’m a gallery represented art. So if you want to buy my work, go to this gallery, like, it’s a great thing to be able to say, as an artist.

David Spriggs 20:05
I think the one thing that no one ever talks about, which is something that needs to be mentioned is that as an artist, you got to make sure that you get money upfront for something, it’s a commission, you got to ask for your, your 50%, or whatever your commission rate is, because sometimes people don’t pay. And you know, it’s not not good, it can really put some financial strain on you. And also, some galleries don’t pay either. So you have to be also careful there.

Matthew Dols 20:38
Just to be clear, I’ve worked in art galleries, I’m fully aware of the issues of not paying artists and having them calling constantly for the gallery owner, like, Hey, is the owner, I’m like, No, and like the gallery owner sitting right there. Like Don’t Don’t, don’t I don’t want to talk to them. Okay,

David Spriggs 20:54
thank you.

Matthew Dols 20:56
So, I’m fully aware of that, that does happen. And it’s very unfortunate. But I mean, to a certain extent, that happens in every business, like I’ve also worked at warehouses that don’t pay their suppliers, like so like, you know, it’s not unique to the arts, but it does put more of a financial strain, because we’re, for lack of a better word, the word like small businesses, and so like every penny counts does.

David Spriggs 21:20
Yeah. And regarding like, projects, often being, you know, athlete, what would they do for, for some place, and it’s amazing how much information people want. And after you’ve sent like, hundreds of emails, and you’ve not been paid for anything up to that point, it’s, you know, you start to realize, like, and I think it’s a kind of a bit of a learning curve, to know that you need to be before you do anything, get paid for something. And projects much, much more likely to happen if someone’s already put down some finances. So they’re the kind of locked in invested some way before commencing. And, you know, I’ve done negotiations and talked about a lot, a lot of different large scale projects for places which have all fallen through, unfortunately, and some of them you know, I’ve not made a penny on it. We’ve worked for three, four months on, for doing this. So, yes, definitely. That’s something or if I was going to offer advice to a young artist, or suggest to be careful,

Matthew Dols 22:29
I’ll ask you for advice at the end, also, what I mean, but it’s hard because a lot of the creative field is trying things having faith being a being willing to like you said, like do some nonprofit exhibitions, things like this to sort of build your CV, get a better name, maybe meet some people, because like you do an exhibition at a nonprofit place, because the curator is somebody who then might open some doors for you somewhere else, or, you know, things along this line, so that we as artists, sadly end up doing a lot of not like free work. But basically, we put a lot of effort upfront for a hope and a prayer that things will work out in the long run.

David Spriggs 23:13
I think, especially being a younger artist, I think that’s the hardest period of time, from graduating from school, and trying to kind of make your mark, that you actually do have to exhibit for free, you’ve got to make an investment and that investment in yourself. And even as later in life, you know, it’s like you have to kind of find this balance between spending a lot of time doing the social networking or everything else that goes into being an artist and then actually making art. So in my mind, eventually divided is the the art market, the whole aspect of selling and dealing with galleries or just dealing with people in general, the kind of the profession of it. And then there’s art. That’s the thing that keeps me going and I think keeps a lot of artists going is just thinking about art, you know, ideas, the discussion around art. And so I have to separate these two in my head just to stay sane because if you think of our like as a profession as just like this all encompassing art market, I think it can be quite discouraging.

Matthew Dols 24:28
I’m like I’m in the habit. I keep my professional studio as far as production of art very separate from my business of running the arts. Like I literally have them in different buildings like so that they don’t even overlap because I don’t want to the stress of the social media or taxes or shipping or anything to be interfering with the production of being creative.

David Spriggs 24:54
We see so many things on Instagram now. I think as an artist, you know, you could spend half a year on one image, or let’s say, if you’re a painter, we spent the half year on a painting and you know that you’re only going to get like, not even a full second from people is it really worth spending half a year on it. And that’s when you have to separate that in your mind from doing art. Because you kind of think about social media and the whole profession of art, you’re never gonna make any art because it’s not really worth our time. Unless, you know, there’s that engagement and thinking of art.

Matthew Dols 25:34
Well, I run into this every now and then, because people say, like, I’ve had collectors on the podcast, and they keep saying, I really love seeing the, in the studio behind the scene videos of the making of the art, not just like finished pieces, and I’m like, Yeah, but when I’m in my studio, I screw up on so many things. And in places of mass, like, I don’t want you judging me for like the way I do my shit. I just want you to judge me off of my finished works, that that worked the successful ones, because of course, I have a lot of things that fail. So like a lot of tests and a lot of like, Oh shit, I just overworked this thing or whatever. But it seems like because of social media, like you said, there’s this speed, that they want things, they want new things on the content every day or every week. And some of us just aren’t that productive.

David Spriggs 26:27
I think that what social media has done to art is made art more of an entertainment. You know, 20 years ago, I think the art world was less large people that are really just like studied art, or you know, or somehow in the art world somehow. It’s not the general population, but I think the general population is become part of the world now. And so we’re seeing how, you know, popular votes, whether it’s the number of Instagram likes or followers, influencing how much something’s worth artists Now, that might have like 150,000 followers might be regarded as better artists than an artist that might be profoundly amazing. And that only has 300 followers. It’s kind of like almost like attaching $1 value to something. And people are deciding through the dollar value that something’s better. So I think if we’re finding like a change in the world, because of this kind of influx of just basically everyone into into it,

Matthew Dols 27:36
I think it’s dumbing down the the general overall quality of work, because it’s basically it’s gone to, you know, art by committee, more or less, because it’s just said, like, Hey, everybody, is this good or bad? And this is like, Okay, what whoever gets the most hand raises wins, you know, the most likes, that’s the theoretical winner. But that’s not how art should be made. And personally, like, I’m really snobby about it. Like, I don’t think it is the right way for it to be. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the existing industry around the art market is also slightly broken in many ways, you know, with the gatekeepers of the curators, and all this kind of jazz, like, that has its own set of problems, also, but I think that social media has just sort of basically added another problem to the entire industry.

David Spriggs 28:27
I think this over the years, you know, the the white pedestal with an artwork on top or the now the museum space, you know, the picture where the, the frame, for example, is an indication of that something that artworks worth something and it should be looked at, to that pedestal, that the artwork created for itself of, of culture, I think is kind of being eroded quite quickly, we’re seeing are becoming no more valued than some of the things now and no more discussed than something else. And so, I think, if anything, it’s that that breakdown of prestige that kind of allows that kind of extended critical thinking on something that’s that’s what’s being eroded.

Matthew Dols 29:18
Well, it’s also becoming a bit of cult of personality as well, like, were these these artists and people on Instagram and social media is our brands more than they are, you know, so they’re, they’re almost lifestyles of artists, then artists themselves.

David Spriggs 29:35
Like if we look at what’s the most popular artists today, let’s say someone like ioway, who’s a brilliant artist, you know, I don’t think anyone could really critique that I’m sure there’s people could critique me, let me back up there. He kind of fits I think what the world’s really looking for is kind of, you know, he has this perfect backstory, you know, someone that fought for the Human Rights, he makes a works that are both aesthetic and grand. And he just kind of what’s happened with him. It’s almost like people the countries have used him politically to is, you know, a pawn. But he he kind of represents this idea of revolution, and, you know, our being able to do something in the world. And I think every artist kind of wants that, you know, there aren’t too much, they profoundly impact the world somehow. And, you know, they’d like to ioway I think a lot, because, you know, he’s managed to kind of do that, in a way in the art world, just loves it. And so that kind of whole package is really like, I don’t know how to say like, it’s helped me as an artist, but it’s, I think that’s what the art world wants. Now, they kind of the this full package personality story. It’s not just about the art anymore. It’s, it’s about the person as well. Yeah, I

Matthew Dols 31:04
mean, it’s always been like that, there’s always been the lore of collectors, like you hear about, like the Peggy Guggenheim, and all these people going to studio visits and being enamored with the artists, I mean, it’s always, the artist has always played into the quality or the appreciation of the art. But I feel like it’s become almost more important to be a brand or a lifestyle or whatever, than necessarily the quality of the art because there’s a lot of, quote unquote, artists that have hundreds of 1000s of followers on social media. And I think that their art is not necessarily really that amazing. But their ability to use social media is spectacular.

David Spriggs 31:50
Well, we’ve just recently seen with these NF T’s, like just completely disrupt the AR world, I’m sure that the whole industry is kind of a bit scared by it, actually, because you have these artists, which really are not very good, a lot of them. But they certainly are able to capitalize on this getting same dollar value as some of the biggest vers well known artists. Just recently, I believe this painting by Van Gogh that got sold at auction for with I believe, 13 million. But then we see an artist like people who’s got the sale at 69 million. So we have a modern day artists that’s way outperformed Van Gogh in terms of a sale. And it’s kind of like makes you think, okay, there’s something kind of not right happening here. And I think this is when money is changing art history, I’m sure that people will be probably part of art history now. Because as soon as they talked about NF T’s that they’re gonna mention people. And so he’s kind of secured this slight little position, which is really more about capitalism and like capital, deciding what goes in art history than the art itself.

Matthew Dols 33:15
I personally, like I’ve looked into NF T’s because I thought about, like, making some of obviously after I saw somebody sell one for $69 million. But to a certain extent, I feel like I yeah, I don’t, I still don’t feel comfortable producing them myself a but secondly, I feel like they’re just a another form of a branding thing, another form of a Kickstarter, because it’s all about being popular basically, like, the more popular you are, the more the value of your thing is, and like popularity is, because it’s a digital thing online. It’s all about online popularity, which of course, I’m really bad at So, you know, to me, it’s just like another thing for me to be bad at like, and besides the fact of course, that I want to be spending more time making art, rather than like publicizing my stuff through NFT websites or whatever else kind of thing like this. I don’t even know how to do it. I don’t understand it yet. But I’m looking into it. But I’m not. But I’m also a little dubious of it. I feel like there’s probably some sort of shady, like, money laundering thing going on there. I don’t know. Totally my opinion. I have no proof of that. So yeah, that’s don’t quote me on that.

David Spriggs 34:29
I think this influx of money into it reminds me of the.com bubble. I think people are just excited about it, because it’s this idea that you know, you can make a lot of money without really having to do anything. We will see how it plays out. It’s definitely kind of wild west at the moment.

Matthew Dols 34:51
Let’s change topics completely. I have a question for you because you mentioned that you have a child. This is why we scheduled our conversation at this time. Did having a child, change your artistic practice your artistic goals? Did it in any way influence you or change your perspective on your entire practice of being an artist,

David Spriggs 35:15
I think it made me realize that art is not everything. I think being an artist is completely consuming, especially if you’re a serious artist, you know, you think about it, it’s not like you can turn off when you go home, you go to bed thinking about it, you wake up, and it actually becomes kind of an sort of an anxiety that never goes away. And I think a lot of artists other degree that you never feel like you can make the best out work. And so you keep making something new. I think having a child has made me realize that there’s a lot more to the world than just, you know, focusing on this. I think it also makes me realize, just try and find more balance in my life. And regarding like making my work, I don’t think it’s really changed what type of things I want to do or make, just makes me aware, there’s a lot more than my little bubble in my head.

Matthew Dols 36:16
Well, I asked because like, you know, there’s, there’s certain times in your, in your, in your own life, when you’re like, I want to have a book produced of my work, or I want to have a exhibition at the Guggenheim, or, like you have these sort of high aspirational goals of your career kind of thing. And I hear a lot where like, when people have children, that the suddenly the shift is less, let’s say about those lofty goals, and is here to shift a little bit more to, I want to be able to provide for my children.

David Spriggs 36:47
Well, that’s I mean, for any parent, you’ve got to provide, you know, I can’t invest all my money into just my work anymore. But at the same time, I missed a bit, I think, having my daughter, she’s since having my daughter, I think my career is actually called better, not worse. So I feel like thinking about other things other than arts actually been really good for me. Anyway, she’s been such a positive influence on me. And it also makes me wonder, like, really achieved something to show her. So she could be proud of me, Oh,

Matthew Dols 37:23
no, I get the sense. Don’t get me wrong here. Let me give you a back on this. I don’t currently have any children, but I’m planning on having children in the next couple of years. And I have thought about and talked to a lot of different artists about having children. So then I get the sense that having children while helping you find balance, and maybe splitting your focus, so you’re not like 100% on ours and you have no other side interest kind of things. That but in the long run, I feel like it creates a balance that actually becomes it may not be beneficial 100% of the time, but sort of over the long term, it actually becomes more beneficial to you. Because there’s that balance of I want to make sure to be do something to be make them proud of me I want to be able to create create some legacy that they can then potentially you know, have money from or whatever it is kind of thing that drives you that somehow that that having those having a child or children ends up being beneficial.

David Spriggs 38:26
Well, exactly. And also that it when you’re at the studio working you realize you’ve only got a limited time to do something. So the rather than just do this or that you’re actually working.

Matthew Dols 38:39
Yeah, you dicked around in the studio less because you have less time to play around and dig around in the studio. Exactly. Yeah. You talked about grants, you talked about getting commissions and all this kind of stuff, one of the main parts of that, that I am still trying to figure out the trick of his how to write these things, because like, making an amazingly stunning, effective, evocative piece of art is one thing, but then being able to write eloquently about it is is to me its own art form in and of itself. So like, how do you write your own statements and all this kind of stuff? Or do you like work with a writer or a curator?

David Spriggs 39:20
Sometimes I write my own things, and then I get people to reward it. I often get my wife to reword things for me. But then I have had different people write different things about my work. And, you know, I do come back to those particular texts and I find it nice to actually have you know, someone that’s especially an intellectual like, say what you were thinking in words that seem to fit. I think, artwork shouldn’t need texts. I think the best artwork if we think of art as a form of community, If you can’t communicate your idea with the outworking, you need to have a book to go with it, then it’s not really functioning the way it should do. But it is nice when the text, maybe kind of highlights things that are there in the work that you as an artist maybe couldn’t find the words,

Matthew Dols 40:22
I get it, I’m on your side, I wish I wish we as creators could just create. And then basically, there was another profession of people who write about it. I know, they’re called art critics and curators. But I wish that they would, I wish, I guess that they were more affordable, or that it was appropriate for them to write my text that I could then use for a application to whatever thing, but unfortunately, they don’t generally want you to have a curator or whoever write your text for you. They want you to write it yourself. Because I find that stuff really tedious and difficult.

David Spriggs 41:02
Yeah, I find it really, really hard to write about my work. You know, it might be a project I’ve been thinking about for six months, and I have an encyclopedia of wealth of thinking that goes into it. But then I can’t even get out one sentence to describe the work. just literally what what do we see? But it would be nice, yes, to have someone that could always do that part for you. Like a writing partner. That’s

Matthew Dols 41:28
what I want. I want a writing partner who will do all of my texts for me like as a ghostwriter. And I can say it’s my writing, but they do all the work of that.

David Spriggs 41:37
I think everyone was like, so it’s already your emails as well.

Matthew Dols 41:44
Oh, no, I’m fine with emails. I just make them really, really short. Well, but Okay, so when you’re writing, because you’ve done, you’ve been in biennials. Okay, so like, How were you invited into biennials? Or did you do proposals to get into those? Like, how does that all work?

David Spriggs 42:02
The first biennial I was in was discharged or biennial, and they had a call for applications. And this is the time Not long after I’d done some of my It was 10 years after I did my first layered artwork. So I’d submitted I wanted to do a large scale installation, and it seemed like an appropriate place to do it. And so yeah, I was given that some funding to do that. And it’s a bit of an experiment, because it was my first large scale installation. But then that, you know, that was actually access the power of the network access power. And that then led to other opportunities. And since then, most of my exhibitions have been through invitation. I’ve been invited to go to Japan this year for the Oakland auto, triennial and Sousou for doing large scale installation. So I think that all came about through this first installation is a good opportunity.

Matthew Dols 43:03
So let me get this straight. There was just an open call. You wrote a proposal you got accepted. That’s how you got into that biennial.

David Spriggs 43:11
The first one? Yeah. Yeah, fuck.

Matthew Dols 43:15
I know, Sharjah I actually used to live in Abu Dhabi.

David Spriggs 43:17
So I really,

Matthew Dols 43:19
yeah, Sharjah is an interesting place. Not really my cup of tea, but an interesting place.

David Spriggs 43:25
And during my time, there is like, I got to meet some interesting people.

Matthew Dols 43:30
The United Arab Emirates is amazing to visit for short periods of time. living there working for the government, totally different, whole bag of worms yet. Not gonna say anything. I still think that they’re sort of watching me even still today even though but that’s my own my own neuroses. Alright, so the next The other thing that I like, so I was looking through your works, and I was sort of thinking, how do you come up with these ideas? Because Okay, so bear with me, I have a like a real, not just a vague question, like, how do you come up with your ideas? Your works are reasonably abstract. They’re not very abstract. To me, they do have some quantifiable thing, but they’re reasonably abstract. So like, why do you choose a particular thing to abstract or form of abstraction, as your sort of most appropriate way to express this idea?

David Spriggs 44:36
Each works quite different. If you notice some of them are figurative, some of them are quite abstract. Perhaps their work vision is quite an abstract piece. But then at the same time, it looks like things that we might know people say maybe it’s like, an explosion or like the iris of an eye. I think the interesting thing with my work is because of this, they balance between In abstraction, and because it exists as a three dimensional form, we kind of think it’s something real. And in terms of coming up with the idea for vision, I was thinking about perception, I was thinking about form, like how we experience a form, we know it from different angles, a bit like the Cubist idea of like, you know, we see a form from different angles, and our minds kind of piece it all together. That’s one thing, that’s just altean theory. So, for vision, I wanted to have different marks that can and came together to create form. So you have this, this kind of like, almost like lines of perception, these like forced lines, that kind of coming together, and it creates this kind of like half sphere, which also becomes more of a bit like the eye itself. And vision being more of a kind of an act like perception, rather than feels like it’s, it’s not passive. And so I like to kind of bring all these different elements together. visions, really just like a half sphere, it’s really a very, very simple form, really, but you get the sense of form, even though there’s, you have all these different elements kind of coming together. And because of the the lines that are kind of coming together, it kind of brings you into it constantly. And so as a viewer, you’re kind of drawn into it, just like that play on different things. And then other works. You know, let’s say gravity, which is a very similar kind of piece, I just kind of spiraled The, the form, you still have a sense of form. And so when we think of everything, everything kind of comes together because of gravity. And so it kind of this kind of keeping with that idea.

Matthew Dols 46:55
Okay, sorry, I’m sort of laughing under my breath here. You just described your work as Yeah, I just kind of turned the form. Literally, like, that’s how you come up here at like, abs kind of shift the shape a little bit like, that’s it, that’s how you do it.

David Spriggs 47:11
I actually do agonize about this. Every night, you know, all my waking time, I think about the next hour work. And I, like I mentioned before I try and reduce it down to its absolute simplicity. So something like gravity, how would you represent it? You know, we might think of something like galaxies or for this idea of kind of coming together.

Matthew Dols 47:38
Okay, okay. But wait a minute, so they know you because you just sort of said something. So you had the plan about trying to represent gravity, then you tried to figure out how to visually represent it. So you come up with a consort of things you desire to represent, and then figure out what the appropriate way to represent it. So it’s not. So it’s a function or sofa, I guess, function over form instead of form over function?

David Spriggs 48:04
Yes, it depends on the artwork, actually, sometimes I think about what I would like to make, and then like, try and think of concert the concept that would fit to it, and then I might tweak the initial artwork. One of the recurring themes of all my many of my works is the idea of power. There’s lots of ways to think about power. It’s, it’s, you know, you can think of it like it’s state power, you could think of power and like something being powerful, like it’s an image, or you can think of like military power or power of nature, there’s all these different ways like his forces, to actually start to see through my work kind of different representations of power. So register, which is actually represents armored police officer on horseback. I thought it was would be an interesting way to represent contemporary state power, though referring to the history of equestrian statues of the past usually been emperors or kings, and usually the be enormous, enormous wealth of a city there would go into producing these equestrian statues, it was an absolute show of power. The artwork was used to represent power. And so how would you represent modern state power, you know, we don’t usually have a single person as the kind of the image of power, but I think people still relate to artworks from the past. So the police officer on horseback is a same type of imagery or same same type of thing that we see for riot control and the only use these horses still in our times to because There’s a physical reaction to it. So I wanted someone when people see my artwork to have that kind of physical reaction to just really, really feel dwarfed by this, this form, I made it thermal imaging kind of colors, you know, the red, being this kind of very warm color. And then the blue being the cool colors. So it has a very kind of contemporary coloring to it. But at the same time, you have this form that’s like the materializes, when you go to the side and kind of just breaks apart. You know, the right guard is like, kind of faceless. It’s just a representation of power.

Matthew Dols 50:43
Would you say that, and so it starts making me think about the scale of your work also, because like, when you work in these monumental scales, there is a sense just a sense of power by the colossal nature of it the dominant sort of thing in the space, the relationship of the human form to this MJO scale that’s much larger than us. But you also do smaller works that are more intimate in size. And I mean, I’m sure that that then also still has some relation to the power of the viewer to the power of the relation of the work itself as well.

David Spriggs 51:16
Yeah, the smaller pieces have a different feeling like the they’re almost like scientific specimens, you know, like that we kind of kind of experience you know, we walk around it, the imagery that I’d usually do for these smaller works would be often quite different. And sometimes they’d actually do smaller works as kind of mcats for the larger works. And there’s definitely a different different sense to it, you know, when it encompasses your whole peripheral vision, you know, your entire field of view versus something that you have to kind of walk up to, there’s certain intimacy. So it just depends on what I wanted to achieve. This is a series I did called Transparency Report, which were representations of bags that look like they’re in X ray, something we might see at the airport. So they’re very intimate, they’re quite smaller, like human scale, life size bags. But when we go to them, we start to see like the the small little things inside, you know, the hairbrush, and one of them, and you can start to determine who this person is. So they sort of become like portraits of people, just through these possessions. But the broader theme of them is actually surveillance. Again, state power, that’s another bigger context of being surveillance is more important. And so through, even though these artworks very small, they become about something much bigger, they wouldn’t actually work very well being huge installations. I think that because they’re small, it functions better. So it was decided which pieces should be small, which should be big, depending on what the subject is and what I want people to get from it. Alright,

Matthew Dols 53:09
I’m reminded when I look at your work of some of the, I think it’s a newer work of Idris Khan, I’m always interested, like, do our two people who work similarly know each other?

David Spriggs 53:21
No interests.

Matthew Dols 53:23
You don’t know. It just can’t. Okay. That’s fascinating. None of that’s good.

David Spriggs 53:27
I’ve seen some of his works just online.

Matthew Dols 53:30
He did painting for a long time he needed to photography for a while in his early career, but men about five years ago, he started doing a layers of text on glass that were creating these very explosive looking things that have a strong similarity to some of your works. And so that’s why I was just wondering if you’re aware, because I was because when I was in school, I remember making I did this work that I was so proud of. I was like, Oh, look, I came up with this really cool technique. It’s really great. I love what it’s doing. And my teacher just turns it goes, Yeah, Robert Heineken did that in the 1960s. I’m like, God dammit, I thought I was being so imaginative and creative, and fucking somebody did it. 40 years before me. So I’m always interested in, like, what we who we know about and what influences us or how we’re connected to things.

David Spriggs 54:21
I’ve seen Mr. cannons work that someone sent me the images of it, it’s, I mean, he’s doing something different. Just because it’s with layers. You know, it’s not something I you know, can own that say, but I’m interested to see what people do with layers. I mean, I think of it as a kind of a new form of thinking and a new way of representing something which, you know, there’s so many possibilities. People have used canvases for so long, and you can’t imagine one person that painted on a canvas originally, and then saying, hey, you can paint on a canvas. You know, that’s like, that’s what I do just come to learn of the different differences in its, I think that we’ll see a future of layered work. I’m excited to see that. I just hope that, you know, people have seen my contribution to that. Just to

Matthew Dols 55:18
be clear, you are doing it as far as I can see on your CV prior to him doing the works on glass. So you were first as far as I’m concerned.

David Spriggs 55:29
My first layer dot work was actually in 1999.

Matthew Dols 55:33
Yeah, no, he is for the first layered piece I saw of yours was like 2013 2014, something in that range.

David Spriggs 55:41
So it’s been an interesting, like history of people doing things in layers, you know, the more I’ve looked into it, you know, learn the Robert Rauschenberg did a series on with lithographs, which are kind of interesting, but I actually didn’t come across them until probably 10 years ago, I’m really trying to push is kind of creating a new kind of way of thinking, like, different this different than thinking in photography or drawing, like, thinking about it as a space, thinking of it as kind of a new form of perspective. When you think of linear perspective, you know, that was an invention way back, and people would represent depth through lines going to arise in point like my mom told me about, but this is like a different way of thinking this is like working on picture planes, you know, the individual seats, but through space animation, they’ve done that, you know, the to create the sense of backgrounds to create a creating, you know, a nice blurry background by positioning that image. further back. We’ve seen layers and theater, in order to create, let’s say, an ocean looks like it’s moving with different layers of water. But I think it’s, I think there’s a lot more potential to it. And I’m hoping, over my lifetime that I can really, really explore all the different ways to do things.

Matthew Dols 57:09
If you don’t mind me asking how old are you?

David Spriggs 57:11
42? Okay,

Matthew Dols 57:13
I’m 47. Good age. Alright, finishing up. So I had these questions that I generally ask. So one is, are there three artists that you’re looking at these days?

David Spriggs 57:28
Honestly, I absolutely love my brother’s work. My brother in law, he’s a third maybe just that at that part. But

Matthew Dols 57:39
no, nope, leaving that in.

David Spriggs 57:43
My brother he is. I think he’s the best portrait artist in the 3d world, digital portraiture. He’s really become one of the pioneers. He’s absolutely the most groundbreaking work. And, you know, he’s just done recently a portrait of me, which is so realistic that most people just when they see it, they dismiss it as just a photograph. But this is a fully three dimensional portrait. In the the world of 3d, as often the special effects industry has been a big part of it. But primarily people when they would represent a face, they would, you know, have it like very static, but again, coming from an art background wanted to make 3d portraiture like a field, he started making these portraits of our family, hyper realistic, like he really wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s not a photograph you’re looking at, but he’s really like, managed to create a his own following and I think for 3d portraiture, it’s really quite groundbreaking. And we discuss the implications of portraiture with technology and what we know as an art form. mean my brother would discuss so many different ideas of art, he often helps me make my works And anyway, is definitely for me, probably my favorite artists you

Matthew Dols 59:17
older or younger.

David Spriggs 59:18
He’s two years younger. Other artists that I really admire. I think, I don’t want to sound too cliche, but I love I love free license work. He’s done some quite groundbreaking works on perception. I’ve always admired the work of initial rapport and James Terrell, but I actually am interested also in lots of artists throughout history too. Okay, wait,

Matthew Dols 59:46
let me slow you down. Just to be clear, I’m asking more contemporary artists.

David Spriggs 59:51
Okay. So I do like a free lesson as I mentioned, and chimps, Taro is great is works. Color fields are quite powerful. And yeah, initial report I really admire for the scale and the, you know, very kind of abstracts very much about the body. All right. There’s many others.

Matthew Dols 1:00:14
No, those are lovely. Those are all good ones. And very relevant it I can see the influences in your work of those people.

David Spriggs 1:00:22
Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:00:25
All right. Last question is just advice, you gave some advice, but sort of any, any additional advice that you want to give to the next generation,

David Spriggs 1:00:33
I would always make art for yourself, you know, as an artist, for most and to do something that you actually want to do rather than what you expected to do or what you think might make you look witty and intelligent to other people. It’s important to always just do something that you love, because you might be doing the rest of your life. And you want to look back and you know, feel like that time had been worth spending time to be doing that.

Matthew Dols 1:01:03
Fair enough. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time.

David Spriggs 1:01:06
Thank you very much.

Matthew Dols 1:01:10
Thank you very much for listening to the entire episode. I appreciate it greatly. Now what something I need from you is I need you to do go and do a review of some sort. It could be star rating, it could be a written review, anything you can do. What it does is it helps the algorithm about podcast to say that this is a podcast that people are not only listening to, but they’re reacting to in their work, they’re going that extra mile to actually give reviews about. And so that makes it so that we go higher in the rankings. Now, you might think, what does that have to do with you? Well, if we get higher in the rankings, when we will be able to get more listeners if we get more listeners will get better guests. We get better guests. We will learn more from this podcast. So you taking a couple seconds and going and do that will end up being helpful directly helpful to you as much as it is to us so greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com