New Paintings

This is the work of David Spiller, born in London in 1942. David studied at the Slade School of Art, London in the early 1960s. He exhibits regularly throughout Europe and has solo shows during 2000 in Denmark and France, and in the USA. This exhibition of new work will be his third at Beaux Arts.

'These are good paintings - but they are also fun. How often nowadays do we have real fun in an art gallery?' (Edward Lucie - Smith, art historian.)

They are multi - layered paintings with multiple meanings, where high art and low art collide. There is a counterbalance between strong graphics and the maelstrom surrounding them: scrubbed and scratched surfaces; hard - edged neo geo shapes of bright colours; splashes and dribbles; lines of text and graffiti like scribbles.

'I treasure this paint splattering. It doesn't have to be polite. You can piss on it. You can read what you want into it. It's not media art, it's man's handprint, woman's handprint, it's our handprint' (David Spiller, 1999)

In this world, this mish mash of cultures, clash of money and beggary, brutality and fashion, bombardment of wonders and bombs, of slogan and soundbyte, post Pop, post-modern, eclectic electronic slick or seedy, Spiller might come across as aware, canny, playful and certainly of his moment…and he can manage this world quite beautifully. (Linda Saunders, journalist and poet.)

Selected Bibliography

1942 Born in Dartford Kent
1957 Sidcup School of Art
1958-62 Beckenham School of Art
1962-65 Slade School of Art
1988-89 Lived and worked in Berlin and New York

1987 Zeitkunst Gallery, Innsbruck and Cologne (solo show)
Eugene Lendel Gallery, Gras, Austria
(solo show)
Kunstverein, Mannheim, Germany
Woord and Reeld, Museum Hedendaagse Kunst,
Utrecht (travelled to Stadtmuseum, Ratingen)

1988 Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)
Kana Contemporary Arts Gallery, Berlin
(solo show)
Zeitkunst Gallery, Innsbruck and Cologne
(solo show)

1989 Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)

1990 Alexander Roussos Gallery, London
(solo show)
Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)
Ariadne Gallery, Vienna (solo show)

1991 Ariadne Gallery, Vienna (solo show)
Willy Schoots Gallery, Eindhoven Holland (solo show)

1992 Reflex Gallery, Vienna (solo show)
Pop and Artvertising, Museum Van Bommel, Venlo, Holland
Gallery Naviglio, Milan and Venice, Italy
(solo show)

1993 Gallery Naviglio, Milan and Venice, Italy
(solo show)
Gallery Rokoko, Stuttgart, Germany
(solo show)

1994 Gallery Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark (solo show)
Gallery Cotthem, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

1995 Gallery Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark
Gallery Cotthem, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

1997 Gallery Cotthem, Barcelona, Spain (solo show)

1998 Take 3, Beaux Arts, London
Rokoko Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (drawings)
Gallery Cotthem, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)
Beaux Arts, London (solo show)
(Catalogue essay by Edward Lucie Smith)

1999 Cartoons and Comics, Virgin Atlantic
Gallery Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark
Beaux Arts, London (solo show)

2000 Gallery Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark (solo show); Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, Florida; Beaux Arts, London

Art Fairs
Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, FIAC Paris, Cologne, Basel, Frankfurt, Line Art Belgium, Copenhagen, Bologna, ARCO Madrid, London, Art 98 (solo show), Art 99

Recent reviews
Jonathan Jones, Modern Painters, Autumn 1998
Charles Dee Mitchell, Art in America, May 1998

All works are acrylic and crayon on canvas