Dennis Spiteri was born in Malta in 1948 and migrated to Australia with his family in 1954. He graduated from the National Gallery Art School in Melbourne (now the Victorian College of the Arts) in 1969.

Classical music informs most of his work. Each of the series of paintings he has produced have had particular music at their core. Beginning with his Mass in 1970 (inspired by Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis), to his current series The Song of the Earth in 2005 (both a tribute to Mahler and to the overwhelming power of nature that now surrounds him).