meer

Noah Spivak’s silver works continue to explore the ambiguous space between narcissism and self-loathing—a delicate terrain that shapes how we understand ourselves. It’s the emotional and psychological boundary where who we think we are starts to blur with who we want to be. meer investigates this distance, by mapping out our tensions and revealing just how unstable and shifting our sense of identity can be.

Over the past six years, Spivak has been engaged with 18th-century alchemical practices, with a particular fascination for the way silver interacts with glass. While technical in its process, he finds its rigidity deeply poetic and surprisingly forgiving. The resulting surfaces are reflective, but imperfect—at first glance, they appear clouded, and even failed. Yet, with time, each surface begins to reveal its own distinct clarity and character. This unfolding mirrors the process of self-reflection: the longer we spend with our own image, the more layered and complex it becomes.

For the artist, this body of work speaks to the duality of narcissism of his own identity—the tension between the confident, curated self and the uncertain, internal one. The works become both a mirror and a veil, offering a space in which confidence and doubt coexist. Spivak uses this alchemical language not only to explore materials but to gesture publicly toward his personal struggles with self-perception, image, and ego.

meer invites the viewer into an intimate and reflective experience. In confronting the ambiguity of these surfaces, we are encouraged to examine our own shifting sense of self and the fragile boundaries between who we are, and who we appear to be.

About

Noah Spivak studied at the Cooper Union School of Art, New York and received a Bachelor of Fine Art in photography from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver (2015). After graduation he migrated to Melbourne and has mounted more than two dozen solo exhibitions and appeared in an equal amount of group shows. Some of his more notable exhibitions include I’m Ok (and other lies…) at Gaffa Gallery (Sydney, 2021), Leftovers of a Ghost at Counihan Gallery (Merri-bek City Council, 2022) programmed into National Science Week 2022, and most recently, A Study of the Boy with Wings at Phoenix Gallery (Athens, 2023) which marks the artists first solo exhibition in Europe.

Spivak was awarded the 2021 Emerging Artist Award presented by FortyFive Downstairs (VIC) and has been shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the 2022 Museum of Art & Culture Art Prize (NSW), the 2023 Footscray Art Prize (VIC) and the 2024 Incinerator Art Award (VIC). His work has been purchased for permanent collection by institutions across Australia, Canada and the USA. He was featured as VOGUE Living’s ‘Fresh Take’ – being named as “one of the most promising young Australian artists” of 2022. Spivak has exhibited both nationally and internationally.

The artist’s compulsive urge to collect – objects, relationships, meaning – is used to navigate the small phenomena of the reality we inhabit; pulling inspiration not from what our senses have access to, but rather, their limitations and inaccuracies. Spivak’s current processes collaborate with the alchemical world, creating temporal artworks that express a deep adoration and understanding for the materials used. His fascination with the invisible and obsession for process-led experimentation culminate in a body of work that explores the sense of self and its relationship to the physical world.