Red Gravity
Stratachrome sculpture · 2021
- ArtistDavid Spriggs
- Date2021
- Dimensions61 × 84 × 20 cm
24 × 33 × 8 in - MaterialsAcrylic paint on layered plexiglass with lightbox
- CollectionPeter Gabriel
A red vortex opens around a dark centre, drawing the eye inward while the painted field appears to press outward into space.
Red Gravity treats colour as force and symbol. Red concentrates urgency, danger, desire, and attention into a form that appears caught between expansion and collapse. Its dark centre becomes an absence with its own visual weight.
The title names both a physical pull and a perceptual compulsion. The eye is drawn towards the centre even as the surrounding marks circulate beyond it. Seen from shifting positions, the vortex alternately deepens, disperses, and returns to the surface.
Image and surveillance
In 2023, Red Gravity became the cover artwork for Peter Gabriel’s single Panopticom and appeared on stage throughout the international i/o tour. The work’s concentrated field of vision connected with the song’s consideration of surveillance and the distributed gaze.
“It was the theme of surveillance that connected me with the work of David Spriggs because he’d done a piece relating to that.” Peter Gabriel, 2023
Red Gravity is in the collection of Peter Gabriel. View Panopticom (Bright Side Mix). Artwork photography by David Spriggs. Concert photograph by York Tillyer.