Breathtaking ‘First Wave’ crashes into Penticton Art Gallery Friday night

Photo: davidspriggs.art

First Wave is an art installation coming to Penticton this weekend.

This article was produced in partnership with Travel Penticton.

When you first step in front of a David Spriggs piece, you might not believe your eyes.

How can such a thing exist in the real world?

Yet it does. And this Friday night, Spriggs, a world-renowned artist who has shown his wild visions in global hot spots such as New York, Brisbane, Beijing and even Paris’ esteemed Louvre Museum, will bring one of his largest works to the Penticton Art Gallery.

Named simply “First Wave,” the exhibit furthers the Gallery’s recent history of top-notch summer shows. In 2020, it was Bob Ross. In 2021, Buffy Sainte-Marie. Last year it was Robert Bateman, live and in person.

In Spriggs, the Gallery doesn’t have a household name on that level. But it does have a guy who’s currently at the peak of his career, a guy who’s jetting off next week to Kansas City to begin a permanent installation.

A guy hot enough that prog rock icon Peter Gabriel (yes, that Peter Gabriel) sought him out for artwork to accompany both his stage show and his 2023 opus “Panopticom.”

Spriggs, who hails from the UK but recently settled in little old Nanaimo, BC because he thinks “it’s a beautiful place to create art,” is jazzed to be in Penticton for the first time since he was a kid.

But he’s more psyched about this Friday’s opening night gala, kicking off at 7 PM, when he unveils the namesake of his Penticton show, a gargantuan concoction known as “First Wave.”

Photo: Gord Goble/Visit Penticton

Paul Crawford, Penticton Art Gallery director, oversees the installation.

It’s the first time a domestic audience will get to experience it. And that’s quite a coup for gallery curator Paul Crawford.

But it’s also the only piece of art that will reside in the gallery’s main room this entire summer.

What makes it so rarified? Its colossal size, for starters. First Wave is gargantuan at nearly 32 feet long, more than 13 feet high and eight feet deep.

But there’s far more going on here than size. First Wave is multi-dimensional. It’s freaky. It appears to float in space.

Is it alive? Is it a virtual animation of some sort? A projection?

No, no and no.

“Back in 1999 I started thinking about how I could start taking painting into a new space,” said the soft-spoken Spriggs this week as he settled into his Penticton stay.

“I wondered if there was a way to paint through space. If you think of the history of creating space in paintings, you get the linear perspective – a vanishing point with lines going toward a receding space. And that creates a sense of depth.

“And I thought maybe you could take painting to a space beyond the linear perspective.”

In First Wave, concocted just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic for a Japanese-based art festival but never seen publicly due to that country’s severe lockdown measures, Spriggs has done just that.

The piece is composed of 90 sheets of transparent film, painstaking hung side by side and, like layers, back to front.

“I saw this layering as a way to capture this kind of painting through space,” said Spriggs. “So I started spraying on Plexiglas sheets and it started looking atmospheric.

“I’d layer the Plexiglas back and on each sheet I’d paint part of the image. So if it was a cloud, I’d paint a small part of one sheet, a bigger piece behind that, and bigger the further you go.”

Crawford believes First Wave guests may well have a “cathartic” experience.

“They’ll come in from a hot day,” he said. “It’ll be dark and cool in here. And there’s this massive force just looming at the end of the room for them.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

Also featured in the exhibit is another large-scale Spriggs piece, Paradox of Power, in the Project Room, and a small assortment of “regular” paintings from his younger years.

The show runs from July 4 through Oct. 25. First night attendees can expect light snacks, beer and wine, non-alcoholic alternatives and a chance to meet and chat with the artist.

Admission is by donation at the gallery opening Friday night, at 199 Marina Way.

David Spriggs will also do a talk and tour the next day, Saturday, July 5th, at 1 p.m.

For more info, hit up the event page here.

Photo: Gord Goble/Visit Penticton

David Spriggs, ready to install his gargantuan masterpiece in Penticton.