ARTisSpectrum - Artist Profiles - Volume 23, May 2010
Cary Griffiths confronts the idea of “art for art’s sake” in his dynamically melodic compositions. Griffiths believes that art should be incorporated into every aspect of daily life. This belief is fervently felt upon seeing Griffiths’ explosive, electrifying paintings. In these works, Griffiths allows the viewer to follow his pouring and dripping of paint into a colorful, fantastical world of sensuous color. In this sumptuous realm, the viewer is free to explore the essence of a thing, place or person. Griffiths doesn’t attempt to represent an object, but, as he states, the “reality of the force that the thing contains.” This energy is immediately palpable to the viewer through Griffiths’ dynamic, diverse color palette, which is applied in a vigorous, spirited harmony.
Griffiths works primarily with acrylic paints, a medium which matches his focus on direct, quick understanding of the heart of a thing or being through lyrical abstraction. In his work, Griffiths incorporates aspects of the accidental or coincidental into his process, which results in a stimulating, evolving declaration of Griffiths’ emotive understanding of reality. Above all else, Griffiths’ passion to create is continually evident, encouraging the viewer to incorporate art into their everyday lives. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cary Griffiths’ work receives critical acclaim both at home and abroad.
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Cary_Griffiths.aspx
15 Bytes Artists of Utah ezine
Exhibition Review: June 2009
Cary Griffiths' Abstracts in Music and Paint
by Sue Martin
Every artist dreams of finding his/her "voice" - that unique way of expressing that thing that drives them to create art. Salt Lake City Artist Cary Griffiths has found a voice that is as musical as it is colorfully visual.
In a style reminiscent of Jackson Pollock, he drips acrylic paint on the prepared canvas in patterns that may seem haphazard but are quite deliberate. The results are richly layered, dimensional paintings that may evoke a kinesthetic as well as emotional response in viewers.
As an abstract painter, Griffiths challenges himself to paint what he feels rather than what he sees. He finds expression through a process of meditation and listening to music. “I like to turn all the lights out and turn on some jazz, and I meditate on what kind of day it’s been. I put on music that either follows the mood of the day, or that alters the mood. Then, as I’m meditating, colors come to mind as well as patterns of lines moving.”
For example, his painting “Black and Tan,” was inspired by the accidental death of a friend’s child and the emotion-filled funeral that Griffiths attended. “I went home, got a glass of wine, and put some soothing music on, but it didn’t help. Then I did a sketch that’s kind of like a blueprint. I usually let a sketch set for a while, but [in that situation] I couldn’t do that. I got out a canvas and started painting.”
Griffiths’s paintings evolve over a number of days or weeks as he responds to previous layers with new layers of dripped paint. Often his paintings have eight or more layers by the time he declares them finished.
Of his process, Griffiths says, "When I paint I almost always feel a beat, a rhythm in what I'm painting. Often a melody as well. As I paint I feel lifted and lyrical. I think the variety of form, color, and content in my work reflects that I hear and feel what I paint. I have been working on creating a visual image of music as a path by which a viewer is able to move into this exquisitely expressive style of modern abstract expressionism."
A worthy goal, but will it play in Salt Lake City? Griffiths is the first to admit that his work might be a little too “out there” for the average Utahan’s taste in art. Nevertheless, he shows – and sells – his paintings in Palmer’s Gallery and Art at the Main. Still, he senses he might do better in a larger, more sophisticated market, which is why he is testing the waters in Philadelphia, New York City, and internationally.
As with any marketing venture, you take risks when bringing your fine art to the world market. Griffiths admits he's learned many lessons and some the hard way. Emboldened by a successful group show in Philadelphia where he sold a painting, he began exploring the New York market. He researched galleries in magazines and the Internet, downloaded applications, and began sending them out.
"Some galleries didn't answer my application," he says, "but most of the curators I've dealt with have been very gracious even if they didn't like my work."
Eventually, he was invited to exhibit at a gallery in the Chelsea district, one that asks the artist to participate in the cost of the exhibit and related publicity. Though some artists argue one should never pay a gallery to exhibit, Griffiths has found it a positive and useful experience. "For the investment, you're getting all the publicity, including articles in magazines and other publications, an opening reception with refreshments, and a catalog."
And, of course, exhibiting at a Chelsea gallery provides lots of exposure to not only potential collectors but others in the art world. Griffiths was invited to exhibit in another New York gallery after his initial exhibit. And it was the curator at his New York gallery that suggested the opportunities to exhibit in London and Portugal.
This is where Griffiths learned a hard lesson. He says he should have known better. "When I was a production manager for an engineering firm, I learned that in some countries you have to pay a little extra money to the powers that be to get your things through customs."
Having momentarily forgotten that business lesson, Griffiths was distressed to learn that his paintings had not arrived at the Portuguese gallery but had been sitting in customs for two weeks. "I had to ask one of the Portuguese artists participating in the group show to take some cash to the customs office and get my work out."
Closer to home, Griffiths’s work has been popular with Art at the Main visitors. This month (June 15 – July 11), he is the featured artist at the gallery, which is on the street level of the main Salt Lake City Library (210 East 400 South). Titled Searching for the Abstract Interior, the exhibit will feature musically titled works ("Body and Soul," "Composition in Black and Blue") that Griffiths describes as "melodic abstractions."
"I leave the interpretation of this art, and the journey into it, to the viewer, believing that each person views art in his or her own way; however, the musical titles may be a nudge onto the bridge."
15 Bytes Artists of Utah ezine
Exhibition Review: June 2007
Cary Griffiths' New Abstractions @ Palmers
by Ehren Clark
In the new show of paintings by Cary Griffiths to be exhibited at Palmers Gallery this month, viewers will find themselves confronted with works that may seem familiar -- appropriations building upon twentieth-century painters from the New York school such as Pollock, Louis, Frankenthaller, Rothko, and Motherwell. Yet decidedly these are creations of the twenty first century and there may be more to these images than mere appropriation and technique.
The abstractionists of the last century worked primarily with a specific directive in mind -- new objective developments in art with the aim of art for art sake in mind. Griffiths' work is highly reminiscent of these artists and the comparisons to Pollock in many of Griffiths' painting cannot be denied, yet his is a post-modern revisitation of old themes in very contemporary ways.
One aspect by which this is immediately apparent in Griffiths' work is his use and application of color. He has developed a technique using pigments intended for glass which he applies to a wetted canvas. He also uses the drip techniques of Pollock and other experimental methods to achieve his aims. The outcome mimics twentieth-century Modernism, yet the result is distinctive and unique. "Blues in Sunrise" emulates the Frankenthaller technique of using color washes, though Griffiths' result is a more opaque and fluid canvas. The difference is his material results in a harmony of color combinations with striking results. Each piece has a distinct character and effect. The colors blend together, retaining the original pigment while creating a mesmerizing fluidity of intermediary hues. "Eddy," one of Griffiths' most vibrant pieces, uses a broad color palette focusing on vivid reds, oranges, and yellows, and fully reveals the artist's unique quality of allowing the pigments to flow together creating an unlimited range of hues. "Flowing Space and Time" is a reminder of a Louis, though its color gradations separate it from Louis' canvases.|1| Louis experimented with color washes in broad bands but Griffiths' bands merge and grow together to create an amazing range of ethereal colors. While Jackson Pollock is the stongest influence apparent in this body of work, Griffiths uses a color palette foreign to Pollock. "Sojourn" is a wonderfully unified ménage of cool colors- greens and blues, which through the use of mediums allows for interplay of many gradations of color to emerge as Griffiths' limited pigments blend.
How are Griffiths' experiments, revisiting old twentieth century artists, any different than the aims of his predecessors? How are these works original and not merely extensions of the old? "Eddy" is a Kandinskyesque panel, similar in color and vibrancy to the others mentioned. Griffiths describes, while creating this piece, experiencing a musical sensation, an almost symbolic synthesis of color and abstract sound to create this panel. To many of his other canvases he ascribes other sensations. Such is where the real distinction between his work and that of the artists of the last century begins.
Griffiths paints of the moment: what he thinks, feels, sees, experiences, remembers. He likes to paint what he senses and even sounds in his mind. Griffiths' motivation towards his canvases are born from these thoughts, recalled experiences, etc., But more importantly is the hope that the viewer will be engaged in a moment, a visitation of his work, which is equally subjective and equally as personal to the viewer as Griffiths' own experiences. The paintings, according to the artist, are mediums, beings in of themselves. The work, opposed to twentieth century objectivity, is an appropriation into post-modern subjectivity.
"Illusion," is an example of the ideology behind most of Griffiths' work. A black canvas with a wash of white and pigments of blues and greens, the painting is reminiscent of Rothko, who enjoyed the purity of his panels and the impact but also invited the viewer to meditate upon them. The conceptualism of Rothko is solid ground for what may be the ideology behind the majority of the works of Griffiths. What the artist renders and what the viewer responds to are two very different things and this is Griffiths' aim. The art is the vehicle between the two. The emotive aspect of artist and viewer are as important as the substance of the work. The experience of the viewer is essential in the full realization of Griffiths' art.
Much of the quality of Griffiths' techniques invites this, such as his choice of pigment and color, or colors which are literally invented on the canvas as the hues blend and merge with one another. One may get lost in the labyrinth of color, which, as Griffiths has stated, has qualities of its own, as was the thinking of Kandinsky. The effect is one that invites contemplation and admiration. Although Griffiths' paintings have a vast range of techniques, they are unified in their primary aim at an emotive connection, via the art, between viewer and artist.
Visually the works are highly striking, something that if seen at a distance one would stop one and encourage a closer look. And with this closer look one is drawn into the work, where one may loose one’s self in these compositions, the emotive colors, the patters, and the fluidity as forms emerge. But most importantly one may find their own person feelings, meanings, experiences, memories, etc, in Griffiths' canvases. This is something Griffiths hopes will impact the viewer as they encounter his painting; a creation that is the bridge between the artist and viewer, an organic being able to transmit ideas and allow for the viewer’s own revelations. These works are post-modern traditionalism, a new approach to traditional Modernism. These paintings are not only engaging, but they are fun too! And the more one looks the more engaging they become.