About David...
Born Bolton, England,
1935, arrived Australia 1950
David's work extends from the mid 1960s to the present day.
His work has always focused on colour, landscape & the
elements, and music. David has explored these through the many styles
that he has developed.
David's work is best explored through his styles such as Balmain, Hard edge and Jazz as his work crosses the datelines of time. For example, some of his current work reflects his early 1970s material.
Review the section "His Work" to explore the various styles David has developed over the years.
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Artists
Statement
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Collections
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Individual
Exhibitions
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Group
Exhibitions
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Awards
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Publications
featuring
the work of
David Aspden
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Images
Artists statement
For me the nature of colour is the colour of nature. Nature
being so various colours are endless. People respond to
colours and are often delighted by them. What for example
is your favourite colour?
Colours in painting can work for or against each other. One can have harmonies and collisions in a single work. In my recent jazz works in this exhibition I have concentrated on combining colour to create harmony but include small variations in colour that challenge you, the viewer, to find the discord.
Colours for example can express exhilaration, despair, well-being, calm and any number of emotions. What are the colours of music? I have attempted to address this subject in my current jazz series but have often explored the relationship of colour and music over the years. Very often when you read the back f a record cover or listen to an introduction to a music score on the radio, you often hear or read a reference to colours in the orchestration as described by the reviewer.
You will also see in this exhibition a great deal of reference
to landscape and the environment. I am challenged by the
colours that can be found in the air, wind and weather environments,
as well as more easily recognisable colours in the tangible
world of nature.
David Aspden
June 2002
Individual Exhibitions
1965 Watters Gallery, Sydney
1966 Watters Gallery, Sydney - March and
November
1967 Watters Gallery, Sydney; Strines Gallery,
Melbourne
1968 Farmers' Blaxland Gallery, Sydney;
Gallery A, Melbourne
1970 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1971 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1973 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1974 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1975 Solander Gallery, Canberra
1976 Monash University, Victoria; Rudy
Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1977 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney
1981 Rudy Komon Art Gallery, Sydney; Realities
Gallery, Melbourne
1982 Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney
1983 Realities Gallery, Melbourne
1984 Warwick Fine Art, London
1985 Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney
1986 Charles Nodrum, Melbourne; Realities
Gallery,Melbourne
1988 Realities Gallery, Melbourne; BMG
Fine Art, Sydney
1990 Studio Exhibition
1991 Studio Exhibition
1992 Studio Exhibition
1993 Studio Exhibition
1994 Anima Gallery, Adelaide
1995 Australian High Commission, Singapore
1996 Gallery 482, Brisbane; Wagner Gallery,
Sydney
1997 Annandale Gallery, Sydney;
Anima Gallery,
Adelaide;
Gallery 482,Brisbane
2000 Wagner Gallery, Sydney
2002 Celebration of Colour, Orange Regional
Gallery
2004 Jazz, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
Group Exhibitions
1966 'Contemporary Australian Painting',
Los Angeles and
San Francisco
1968 'Group 1', Gallery A, Sydney and Melbourne;
'Group 3', Gallery A, Melbourne
1969 'The Field', National Gallery of Victoria
1970 'Colour and Structure', Blaxland Gallery,
Sydney
1971 XI Biennale of San Paulo, Brazil
1972 'Australian Landscape', Adelaide Festival
of Arts, then to all state
galleries;
'Australian
Paintings and Tapestries of the Past 20 Years',
NSW
House, London and Bonython Gallery,
Sydney Biennale, Sydney Opera
House
1974 'Five Festival Artists', Greenhill
Galleries,
Adelaide ‘Ten Australians’,
International tour and ABC film
1978 Contemporary Australian Drawing, WA
Art Gallery
1981 Perspecta, Art Gallery of NSW; '6
Artists',
Wollongong City Art .........Gallery
1983 '12 Australian Painters', Art Gallery
of W.A.;
Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery New South Wales
1984 'David Aspden', Warwick Arts Trust,
London;
Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery New South Wales
1985 Archibald & Wynne Prize Exhibition,
Art Gallery New South Wales
1986 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
'Resistant Spirit', Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery; Realities,
Melbourne.
1987 'Painters and Sculptors', Queensland
Art Gallery and Japan
'Surface for Reflection', Art Gallery of NSW
1988 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
1989 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
Artmet, Woollahra Sydney
1990 David Jones Gallery
1991 Wollongong Regional Gallery, 'Prints
Galore'.
1992 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
1993 'Contemporary Australian Paintings',
Works from the Allen Allen
and Hemsley collection;
Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery NSW
1994 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
Southern Highlands Regional Gallery, NSW
1995 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne;
Wagner Gallery,
Sydney
“Blast From the Past”, Geelong Regional
Art Gallery
1996 Collectors show, Wagner Gallery, Sydney
'new paint new work', Utopia Art, Sydney.
1997 Wynne Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery
New South Wales
Wynne exhibition at the Wynne estate, Mount Wilson,
NSW
North Newtown School, Sydney;
University of WA,
Perth
1998 ‘Symbiosis’, Utopia Art,
Sydney
New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale;
Eva Brewer, Sydney
1999 Refuse (Wynne Prize), Sydney;
Wagner
Gallery, Sydney
Geelong Contemporary Art Prize;
Redlands Art Prize
Exhibition
Sydney Art Gallery;
New England Regional Art Museum,
Print Portfolio 1
2000 Sydney Art Gallery;
We Are Australian,
Victorian Arts Centre and travelling exhibition;
Idea and Influence, Annandale Gallery
Artists in the Field: a Retrospective. MAGNT, Northern
Territory
2001 Investment Paintings, Wagner Gallery,
Sydney
Modern and Contemporary Australian Art, Charles
Nodrum,
Sydney & Melbourne
Awards
1963 Wollongong Drawing Prize
1965 Wollongong and Drummoyne Prizes, NSW
1967 Muswellbrook Prize, Joint Winner of
Berrima Prize, NSW
1970 Crouch Prize, Ballarat, Victoria
1971 Gold Medal, XI Biennale of San Paulo
Alice Prize, Alice Springs, NT
H. Richards Memorial Prize, Queensland Art Gallery
1972 Gold Coast City Art Prize, Queensland
1973 Travelodge Art Prize,
1984 Received grant from V.A.B. to be artist
in residence at
Institute of Marine Science, Cape Ferguson,
Queensland.
1995 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South
Wales.
Publications featuring the work of David Aspden
M.Horton (ed): 'Present Day Art in Australia',Ure Smith, Sydney, London, 1969
C. McGreggor, Beal, D., Moore, D., Williamson,H., In the Making, Thomas Nelson (Aust) 1969 SBN 17001819
Terry Smith: Colour-Form Painting: Sydney 1965-70, Other Voices, Melbourne, Vol 1, No 1, June/July 1970
Terry Smith: 'The Painting of David Aspden', Art International, Vol XIV, No 8, October 1970
Noel Hutchison: 'The Dynamiting of the Picture - David Aspden's Paintings', Art and Australia, Vol 9, No 3, December 1971
Bernard Smith, 'Australian Painting 1880 - 1970, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1971
Patrick McCaughey:Ten Australians, (exhibition catalogue). Visual Arts Board, Australia Council, Sydney, 1974
Rudi Krausmann: 'Interview with David Aspden', Aspect, Sydney, Vol 4, No 3, 1979
Patrick McCaughey: 'Surviving the Seventies in Australia.
Artscribe, London, No 23, June 1980. Reprinted in Paul Taylor (ed): Anything
Goes - Art in Australia, 1970 - 1980. Art and Text, Melbourne, 1984.Robert Lindsay: The Seventies: Australian Paintings and Tapestries from the Collection of the National Australia bank. The National Bank of Australasia Limited, Melbourne, 1982.
M. Horton (ed) : 'Australian Painters of the Seventies', Ure Smith, Sydney, 1975
A.Bond 'Surface for Reflection Part I and II', Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 1986
J. Hogan (ed):'Painters and Sculptors, Diversity in Contemporary Australian Art', Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1987
Luck, R.K A Guide to Modern Australian Painting Sun Books 1969Kym Bonython: ‘Australian Painting’ 1960-1970
Kym Bonython: ‘Australian Painting’ 1970-1975
Kym Bonython: ‘Australian Painting’ 1975-1980
‘The First Gallery in Paddington’, Edwards and Shaw, Sydney, 1981
Australian Art Collector, July 1997
Art and Australia
Volume 3 No. 4 Illustration “Red & Yellow Diamond” Back Cover
Volume 4 No. 1 Illustration “Blue & Green Divided” Page 16
Volume 9 No. 3
Volume 14 No. 3 Illustration “Crazy Grey” Page 343
Volume 14 No. 4
Volume 15 No. 2 Illustration “Meditation No.5” Page 157The Sun, 10/06/1965
SMH, 10/06/1965, “Two New Art Exhibitions”, Wallace Thornton, review
SMH, 23/02/1966, “Abstract Image With a Purpose”, Wallace Thornton, review
SMH, 25/02/1966
The Sunday Telegraph, 27/02/1966
SMH, 16/11/1966, “A Question of Expression”, Wallace Thornton, review
The Sunday Telegraph, 20/11/1966
The Bulletin, 03/12/1966, page 46
SMH, 07/06/1967, “Allure and Threat”, Wallace Thornton, review
The Sun, 07/06/1967
The Bulletin, 24/06/1967, page 44
SMH, 06/06/1968, “The Power of the Modular Idea”, Donald Brook
The Bulletin, 06/06/1968, page 65
ART INTERNATIONAL, No 8, 1970, “The Painting of David Aspden”, page 51
The Age, 06/08/1969
SMH, 10/09/1970, “Miraculous Week”, Donald Brook
SMH, 10/06/1971, “Dilemma of the social artist”, Noel Hutchison
SMH, 22/10/1971, “AG Richards Memorial Prize, Queensland Art Gallery”
SMH, 15/10/1972, “When Colours Began to Meet in an Embrace”, James Gleeson
SMH, 12/10/1972, ”Pleasantness Triumphant”, DonaldBrook
SMH, 31/05/1973, “Surprise – A Vital Emotion”, Daniel Thomas
SMH, 28/10/1973, “Travelodge Art Prize Presentation”.
SMH, 10/11/1973, “A Sign Writer Makes Good”, Lenore Nicklin
SMH, 01/11/1973, “Entertainment and the Arts”, Daniel Thomas
SMH, 21/06/1974, Art Review, Daniel Thomas
SMH, 30/06/1974, “Sequences by Colour”, James Gleeson
SMH, 08/03/1976, Art Review, Nancy Borlase
SMH, 23/03/1976, “Boudoir Fripperies and Restless Exploration”, Nancy Borlase
SMH, 16/09/1977, “A Reminder of the Goodness of Good Art”, Nancy Borlase
SMH, 30/06/1979, “With Pleasure and Offence”, Nancy Borlase
SMH, 13/11/1982, Art Review, Terence Maloon
The Adelaide Review, 24/09/1994, “Camouflage Lifts to Reveal a Hidden Nature”, Tim Lloyd
The Adelaide Review, 10/1994, “Elegant Tightrope Walk”, John Neylon
Southern Highlands News, 07/12/1994, “Southern Highlands Regional Gallery”
Southern Highlands News, 14/12/1994, “New Exhibition at Regional Gallery”
SMH, 08/04/1995, “The Wynne Prize”, John MacDonald
Geelong Advertiser, 08/12/1995, “Students Join Art Gallery in Trip down Memory Lane”, Denise Civelli
SMH, 26/10/1996, Spectrum Arts, John MacDonald
The Australian, 31/10/1997, “Painter Always Brings the weather With Him”, Louise Martin-Chew
SMH, 15/05/2000, “Art Draws New Investors”
Weekend Australian, 21/07/2001, “Art Market”, Michael Reid
SMH, 21/06/2001, “Back From the Edge”, John MacDonald
