British artist David Spiller to exhibit at The Portland Gallery

From the 26th September -18th October, the Portland Gallery in Mayfair is exhibiting works by British artist David Spiller in his first solo show.

Spiller`s work is most closely aligned with Pop Expressionism and cartoon figures, such as Popeye and Felix, often form a central part of his works. In addition, Spiller is renowned for the unusual use of text in his paintings and he often includes large quotes across the painting along with little smaller graffiti type scribbles.

Interestingly, the paintings exhibited span Spiller`s career, from 1963 to present, showing earlier pieces dating back to 1963 including `I can’t give you anything but love and murder baby`, as well as new works from 2013 including `You must be an angel`.

David Spiller often stitches panels together to create canvases and tends to work on the ground, similar to Jackson Pollock. Spiller`s use of colour, patchwork, drip painting and stencilled text, as well as scribbled and scratched freestyle writing and drawing, distinguishes him amongst all other artists.

Spiller has always used text in his work. Spiller went onto develop his use of text and took to using stencils after living in New York in the late 80`s. He still uses many of the original fonts in his work today and one of his first stencil pieces was `Take my hand and dry your Tears`, which will be for sale at the exhibition.

Tom Hewlett, Portland Gallery`s owner says: `This exhibition comes at an interesting time, following as it does the Lichtenstein exhibition at the Tate and record prices for American Pop artists being achieved at auction. Spiller can be thought amongst the talented American artists whose works are highly sought after. And the possibility to buy a piece of original British art from a living artist, clearly influenced by the modern masters, is an opportunity not to miss.`

Prices will range from £5,000 to £25,000 and most works will be for sale.