Pooling Project B
Alex Spremberg
2005 | enamel varnish on wood| accession number 673
purchased by the Art Board 2006 – Murdoch University Art Collection
© the artist

Alex SPREMBERG

born 1950, GERMANY
lives and works in Perth, WA

PAINT AND PROCESS

At the base of my practice lies an experience of not being able to see what was in front of me. Once it was pointed out, it was clearly visible. It was a shock because I believed that my eyes conveyed to me what was out there.

It is a common human experience that led to the realization that we are unable to see purely what is in front of us. We constantly perceive life through an invisible veil of social and personal conditioning; our mind and our perception are geared towards utility and survival. For most humans, a river is never a river; it is always either an opportunity to go fishing, boating, photographing or relaxing, etc.

My approach is an investigation into the conditions of painting. I am attempting to recognize and analyse its components and present those distinctions visually by altering their conventional relationships.
Earlier work examined the distinction between support and surface. More recently, I am questioning the relationship between colour and paint. What is a painting? Does it have to have colour? Does it have to have paint? Is there a difference?

I am also looking at processes, gestures and attitudes. I am interested in gestures of non-interference, where processes are activated that create their own inherent results and then collide with my own expectations.

My work is not representational as nothing is re-presented. The paintings have undergone processes and have become autonomous objects.

I am interested in artworks as an impersonal phenomenon, like a rainstorm is just a rainstorm; it carries no inherent meaning. Viewers are given the opportunity and responsibility to recognize their own processes of creating meaning and significance.

Alex Spremberg - 2004

Other selected artwork acquisitions