A bowerbird of human emotions, Australian artist Stuart Spence is an artist that bounds between genres and mediums. His is a career that has seen the morphing of imagery and ideas into a narrative that delves deep into the elemental nature of living. Spence’s photography is largely produced in a reportage style, his subject matter found rather than directed. His video work revolves around interpreting his own photographs as characters, often in monologue style.

Spence’s fervent mind and skilled hand bends light, words and sound to his effervescent will. And so it is with the photographic works—captured in a lens with a neo-impressionistic fervour—the grain of the image, in effect, becomes pointillist in nature. The noiresque sensibility is all encompassing. Spence makes melancholy desirable.

His works are currently held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, The National Library of Australia, the Manly Art Gallery and Museum and The Bundanon Trust.

Spence has released two books, When A Man Snaps (2017) and Yield (2021).

View Time and Tide—a video work set in the 1930’s, exhibited in Truro, 8–17 April, 2021 at Nanda\Hobbs.