David Spriggs, a visual artist born in 1978 in Manchester, emigrated to Canada in 1992. For more than two decades, he has developed an immersive body of work situated at the boundary between two and three dimensions, questioning our perception of space, movement, and time.
David Spriggs’ work explores an unstable space, poised between materiality and illusion. Through large-scale installations, he seeks to make visible complex perceptual phenomena: depth, the movement of the gaze, and the transformation of forms according to viewpoint. His works never reveal themselves all at once; they unfold through the spectator’s movement, making the viewer an active participant in the experience.
Since 1999, David Spriggs has developed a singular technique based on the superposition of painted transparent images. Stacked within space, these translucent sheets compose floating volumes that are at once precise and unstable, oscillating between implosion and explosion. Depending on the angle of observation, the form emerges, fragments, or almost disappears, revealing the very structure of the device.
The Vision series (2010) fully embodies this research. Presented at venues such as the Marseille Biennale, the Sharjah Art Museum, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and in Montreal, this immersive installation places the viewer at the heart of a perceptual event of monumental scale. The work conveys the impression of witnessing a form in the process of becoming, while simultaneously observing its disintegration—evoking a cosmic phenomenon akin to the Big Bang.
As one moves around the installation, the gaze encounters only a succession of planes and transparent layers, calling into question the very nature of form: does it truly exist, or is it merely an accumulation of images? This constant tension between presence and emptiness, between sensation and abstraction, lies at the core of David Spriggs’ practice.
Through ephemeral, large-scale works exhibited worldwide, the artist offers a total sensory experience in which space becomes fluid and time perceptible. His work invites viewers to slow down, to doubt what they see, and to physically experience the complexity of reality.
Learn more about his art (external link)