John Spiteri (b.1967, Sydney) has been making paintings, sculptures and videos since the early 1990s. Traversing the distances (great or small) between figuration and abstraction, his practice has seen a gradual shift towards non-representational painting on canvas, linen and glass. Recently, these abstract terrains have been populated by vague figures. Implementing a full index of painterly gestures, and utilising a range of tools and processes, Spiteri’s work is an ongoing, personal experiment that unpacks the many possibilities of painting production.
Spiteri’s compulsive and inventive mark-making aims to preserve the uncertainty of material outcomes, which act unpredictably in his highly idiosyncratic compositions. The tentative quality of Spiteri’s paintings activates a deep sense of discovery. The surface—layered, stripped and embellished—acquires meaning in a similarly progressive manner. Ambiguous compositions and their fictional titles revel in the slipperiness of reality.
