Walk on the Wildside

David Spiller is a unique British artist who broke into the 1960s art scene with his iconic text-based works which were highly influenced by Pop Artists of the era such as Lichtenstein, and he is still producing works today.

Spiller trained under the likes of Frank Auerbach, and was highly influenced by the works of artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Rauschenberg and Dubuffet. He adopted working practises of key artists of the period such as Jackson Pollock- working with the canvas horizontally, drip painting and scratching the paintings’ surface. He was famed in the 1960s for his unique use of text in his works, combining it with powerful references to contemporary culture of the time, ranging from Disney characters to Beatles’ songs. Though his work can be aligned closely to Pop Expressionism, he uses strong Pop Art colour and combines it with surprisingly simple expressionism in a unique, recognisable way. Often autobiographical mediations peep through overt references to contemporary culture. This produces a signature style which has multi-generational and multifaceted appeal.

In this upcoming exhibition, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, modern and contemporary British art specialists The Portland Gallery will be showing a range of his works focusing on his pioneering use of text.

This range will feature seminal pieces from the 1960s, such as ‘I can't give you anything but love and murder baby’(1963-1991), (See left-hand image) right up to works from the present day, such as ‘You must be an angel’ (2013), (see right-hand image). Spiller also spent considerable time in New York, where he further developed his techniques using text from the late 1980s onwards, and he still uses many of the original fonts he developed in his work today. One of his first stencil works, ‘Take my hand and dry your Tears’, (2001) will be for sale at the exhibition. The works will be priced from between £5 000 and £25 000.