DAVID SPRIGGS: FIRST WAVE
july 4 - october 25, 2025
Main GAllery
David Spriggs First Wave is a monumental spatial painting composed of ninety transparent layers, each hand-painted to reveal a blood-red colour tsunami frozen in mid-surge. Installed first inside a former fishing-net warehouse for the Oku-Noto Triennale in Suzu, Japan. The wave appears to gather into a luminous crest, saturating the gallery with diffused reflected light, transforming colour from surface into atmosphere and turning vision into encounter. It is an over-whelming experience of colour. Rooted in colour-field painting, Light and Space experiments, and post-minimalist installation, Spriggs extends these legacies by treating transparency as both medium and structure. As visitors move, densities of red painted pigment align and separate, creating a unique experience.
Known for his pioneering work at the intersection of sculpture, painting, and spatial illusion, David Spriggs challenges the boundaries of perception through his large-scale, multi-layered compositions. Constructed from transparent images layered to form three-dimensional visual phenomena, his installations appear to float and shift as viewers move around them.
The exhibition featured the following two major works:
• First Wave (2021), created during the height of the pandemic for the Oku-Noto Triennale in Suzu, Japan. Although it was installed overseas, travel restrictions prevented Spriggs from attending. Making its North American debut this exhibition marks the first time David Spriggs will see the work in its entirety. First Wave will be displayed in the Main Gallery.
• Paradox of Power (2007), A significant early work, this pivotal piece investigates rapid change, deconstruction, and symbolic revolution. Eighteen years on, it remains strikingly relevant, having taken on a renewed sense of gravitas considering today’s political climate, both in North America and around the globe. Paradox of Power will be displayed in the Project Gallery.
Together, these two ambitious works explore themes of transformation, impermanence, and collective consciousness. Through his unique visual language, Spriggs invites audiences to confront both the seen and unseen forces shaping our world, from the fluidity of identity to the architecture of power.
