Dichotomy
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
A single form is divided yet inseparable. Black and white occupy the same volume, each defining the limits of the other.
From the frontal viewpoint, Dichotomy appears to establish a decisive division. One side is dark, the other light. Seen obliquely, that certainty gives way to a shared depth: the two fields blur at their boundary and remain held within the same transparent structure.
The work addresses the attraction and insufficiency of binary thought. Its opposition is immediately legible, but never stable. Every change of position reveals that separation depends upon viewpoint.
The unstable binary
Black and white carry histories of contrast, judgement, and classification. Dichotomy gives this conceptual division a spatial body. The boundary has thickness, and what seems absolute from one position becomes contingent from another.
The sculpture asks how oppositions are constructed and sustained. Rather than resolving its two fields into harmony, it holds them in tension, making their mutual dependence visible.
Dichotomy was commissioned by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City and first presented at Noor Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022.