Antithesis
Stratachrome sculpture · 2022
- ArtistDavid Spriggs
- Date2022
- Dimensions56 × 20 × 56 cm
22 × 8 × 22 in - MaterialsAcrylic on layered plexiglass in an LED lit plexiglass display case
- CommissionRoyal Commission for Riyadh City
- ExhibitionNoor Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
An image reverses with the viewer’s movement. Darkness and light are not placed beside one another, but occupy the same form.
Seen from one side, Antithesis appears as a black square. From the opposite side, it becomes white. The work situates opposition within the act of seeing: its identity depends upon where the viewer stands and how the body moves through space.
The two states cannot be reduced to a single frontal image. Each is complete, yet each conceals the other. Between them lies a sequence of transitional views in which the apparent certainty of black and white gives way to reflection, translucency, and depth.
Two positions, one form
The square recalls modernism’s pursuit of elemental form, but here its autonomy is unsettled. The image has no fixed face. It changes according to relation, asking whether an opposition can remain absolute when both terms inhabit the same object.
Antithesis makes perception temporal. Understanding the work requires memory: the white image is carried into the experience of the black, and the black remains present when the work turns white.
Antithesis was commissioned by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City and first presented at Noor Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022.