Essay by Edward Lucie-Smith

David Spiller: Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door

At first sight David Spiller’s paintings seem very simple: huge, stencilled capital letters that spell out the lyrics of popular songs; allusions to long-familiar cartoon characters; Van Gogh’s Sunflowers passed through the sieve of contemporary Graffiti Art. In fact, the more you look at and think about them, the less simple they become.

One stepping-off point is Spiller’s view that Vincent Van Gogh is the originator of almost everything that has happened in art since the late 19 th century. Spiller’s drastically simplified sunflower images allude not only to Van Gogh, however, but also to Matisse and Andy Warhol. Similarly, his rigid, stencilled letter-forms can be understood as being both references to the Constructivists and also to the American Conceptualist painter Christopher Wool. What Spiller seems to be saying is that Conceptualism on its own is not enough, the eye still hungers for something to feed on.

In Spiller’s case, the way this hunger is fed is through the use of colour – which was exactly Van Gogh’s approach to painting. In his famous letters to his brother Theo, Van Gogh complains of the labour involved in balancing one colour against another, since each addition affects the hue of every other in the composition.

Spiller tackles the problem in a very literal way. What seem to be large canvases in fact often consist of a larger number of smaller ones skilfully sewn together so that the joins are invisible. Each of these small paintings has a single dominant colour. But within each colour area there may also be small patches or dots of contrasting hues.

The rigid black forms of the lettering are sometimes used as cloisons, to separate a particular area from the impact made by the rest. The paintings are thus essentially colour symphonies, with each element carefully planned to enhance the impact made by its neighbours.

The musical metaphor is in one way particularly apt. The paintings are planned to have the same subliminal effect that certain kinds of music produce. Music can enhance our sense of emotional and physical well-being without our being fully aware of the fact. The shock here is, perhaps, that Spiller is a devotee, not of classical masterpieces, but of music in its most popular form. The paintings shown quote lines from songs written by, or closely associated with, singers and song-writers such as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and Buddy Holly, as well as David Bowie, Lou Reed and The Troggs. There is even one work that celebrates a famous song from West Side Story, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. But this is as far towards ‘classicism’ as things are permitted to go.

Spiller says these songs are the soundtrack to his life. They continually run through his head, whether he wants them there or not. Born in 1942, he has of course lived through the whole age of popular music as we now understand it. In an odd way, though it was originally thought of as ephemeral, music of this kind now represents the continuity of Western culture – something in which most of us share and which creates a common bond.

There is one other element in his paintings that perhaps needs explanation. Most of them feature small areas of graffiti-like scribbling, as if a gang of urchins had crept into the artist’s studio in his absence in order to desecrate his paintings. I think that, where Spiller is concerned, these represent a visible revolt – visible in the most literal sense of the adjective – against the inherent pomposity of so much of the contemporary art world, and against the solemnity of intellectual art theorists in particular. It will be remembered that Picasso, especially in his later years, was prone to impulses of the same sort.

What matters to David Spiller is the idea of continuity – ordinary life, lived as most people live it, is for him an inseparable part of the process of making art. The songs ripple through his day as he works to solve the many visual problems he has set himself. They are part of what makes the work seem ‘real’ – an element that binds him to the society in which he lives.

Edward Lucie-Smith, 2009

Art historian and critic

Biography

1942 Born Dartford, Kent

1957 Sidcup School of Art, Kent

1958-62 Beckenham School of Art, Kent

1962-65 Slade School of Art, London

1980s Lives and works in Berlin and New York

1987 GalerieZeitkunst, Innsbruck and Cologne (solo show)

Galerie Eugen Lendl, Graz, Austria (solo show)

‘ Woord & Beeld’, Museum Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht, Holland

(toured to Ratingen, Germany)

‘Materialisation’, Mannheim Kunstverein, Mannheim, Germany

1988 Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)

Kana Contemporary Arts Gallery, Berlin (solo show)

Galerie Zeiitkunst, Innsbruck and Cologne (solo show)

1989 Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)

1990 AlexanderRoussos Gallery, London (solo show)

Twinings Gallery, New York (solo show)

Galerie Ariadne, Vienna (solo show)

1991 Galerie Ariadne, Vienna (solo show)

Willy Schoots Gallery, Eindhoven, Holland (solo show)

1992 Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam

Pop & Artvertising, Museum Van Bommel, Venlo, Holland

Galleria Naviglio, Milan and Venice, Italy (solo show)

1993 Galleria Naviglio, Milan & Venice, Italy

Galerie Rokoko, Stuttgart, Germany (solo show)

Galerie Ferdinand Maier, Cologne, Germany (solo show)

1994 Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark (solo show)

Cotthem Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

1995 Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Cotthem Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

1996 Museum Van Bommel - Van Dam, Venlo, Holland

Cotthem Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

1997 Cotthem Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (solo show)

Galerie Ribbentrop, Germany

1998 ‘ Take 3’, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Rokoko, Stuttgart, Germany (works on paper)

Cotthem Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Edward Lucie-Smith)

1999 Cartoons and Comics, Virgin Atlantic

‘ Artists of Fame & Promise’, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Linda Saunders)

2000 Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark (solo show)

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke & Latem, Belgium

Galerie Guy Pieters, St Paul de Vence, France

Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, Florida, USA (solo show)

Galerie Klaus Peter Goebel, Stuttgart, Germany

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Ben Tufnell)

2001 Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany (solo show)

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Marco Livingstone)

2002 ‘Contemporary Narrative’,Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

‘L’humour dans L’art contemporain’, Museum Espace Belleville, Paris

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Martin Gayford)

2003 ‘David Inshaw – Friends and Influences’,Royal West of England Academy

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany (solo show)

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna

Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

2004 Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Edward Lucie-Smith)

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Raab Galerie, Berlin, Germany (solo show)

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

Galerie Guy Pieters, St Paul de Vence, France (solo show)  

2005 Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany (solo show)

‘ Love for sale’, Bankside (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith)

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Sue Hubbard)

Midwest kunst, Herning Museum, Denmark

2006 Apart Media, Amsterdam (solo show)

Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Summer Show, Beaux Arts, London

‘Mickey dans tous ses états’, Artcurial Paris (mixed show)

2007 Galerie Guy Pieters, St Paul de Vence, France (solo show)

Mannheim Kunstverein, Mannheim, Germany (solo show)

Galerie Wild, Frankfurt (solo show)

Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke, Belgium (solo show)

2008 Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark (solo show; catalogue essay by Simon Grant)

Galerie Tournesol, Lyon, France (solo show)

Willy Schoots Gallery, Eindhoven, Holland (two-man show with Rik Van Irsel)

Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany

Interatrium Gallery, Porto, Portugal (solo show)

Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Martin Gayford)

• Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark

Galerie Guy Pieters, St Paul de Vence, France (solo show; book essay by Martin Gayford)

Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke, Belgium (two-man show with Robert Combas)

‘Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Shut the Door’, Beaux Arts, London (solo show; catalogue essay by Edward Lucie-Smith)

Public and private collections throughout the world