Since 2017, David Spooner has set himself an annual drawing challenge, beginning with a drawing a week, and since 2018, completing a drawing a day, using permanent markers to produce a series of same-sized works. They are vignettes into a psychedelic subconscious populated by salivating T-Rexes, fluro-patterned aliens, smirking dogs, and smiling daisies whose pearly white petals stand on the ready to masticate you. In his aptly titled month-long Outer Space façade takeover, 22 Stories (2022), Spooner envisions a selection of works made in 2022 scrolling across the Judy as to mimic the motion of news tickers (albeit lazy ones!), where repeating elements glide in perpetual misalignment. The result is a celebration of Spooner’s colour mastery, confidence, and commitment to the creative bit.
Over the past few years, David Spooner has been searching for hidden structures within his seemingly wild and scattered practice. He weaves connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and materials to make new work, and in the process reveals the complexity of the inner logic that drives his practice. Working with textiles, drawing and found materials, the artist knits, sews and stitches to produce objects and installations that play with literal and imaginative narratives. Spooner holds a Master of Visual Arts from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University (2008), a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours from Queensland University of Technology (2003), and a Graduate Diploma of Education (Early Years) (2010), also from QUT. He was a visiting artist in the Sculpture department at the Australian National University (2011) and the recipient of the Cathyrn Mittelheuser Travel Grant (2008). More recently, he has exhibited nationally and collaborated with a number of galleries and Artist Run Initiatives.
Most recently, Spooner has developed works for exhibitions and programs such as Snapshot – Take 2 (2022), Outer Space, Brisbane (in collaboration with Tara Pattenden); Time Travellers (2021), Woollongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane; and Clove Hitch (2021), Saw Tooth ARI, Launceston. The upcoming group exhibition Come Together (2022) at Pine Rivers Art Gallery, Moreton Bay, will feature new works by David/David, an artist duo between David and long-time collaborator David Creed.
David Spooner is a resident artist at Outer Space’s artist studios in Chinatown, Fortitude Valley.
Image: David Spooner, Day 57: Forbidden Treachery – the new fragrance (2022). Detail of series 22 Stories (2022)
