Enrico David: 'It's as if the objects are there as an avatar for something that has gone'

"The Italian-born, London-based artist Enrico David first attracted attention in the late 1990s with his large-scale, immaculately executed embroideries featuring masked figures striking extravagant poses. Many of these works were bought by Charles Saatchi and exhibited at the collector's eponymous gallery in a 2001 group show titled New Labour. Soon afterwards, though, David changed direction and began producing the enigmatic, psychologically charged sculptures of mutated humanoid forms for which he is now better known."

"It's a space that demands you throw things at it. You have to get your gloves off; it's quite confrontational. Because of that, I had to use some of my works from the last 30 years that have the capacity to command the space. So they occupy the space in a very stagey way and are almost like six vertebrae, anchoring the show down this long spine."

Enrico David is an Italian-born, London-based artist who initially won attention in the late 1990s for large-scale embroidered masked figures. Many early works were bought by Charles Saatchi and shown in a 2001 group exhibition titled New Labour. David later shifted to enigmatic, psychologically charged sculptures of mutated humanoid forms made from diverse materials, drawing on art history, folk art, design, advertising and gay pornography. The androgynous figures prop against walls, hug floors, hang from ceilings, sometimes merging with furniture or forming theatrical tableaux. David was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2009. His largest exhibition to date, I'm Back Tomorrow, occupies the Castello di Rivoli's Manica Lunga gallery, where works are staged as anchoring vertebrae along the long gallery.

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