Please visit my website at: www.cablegriffith.com

Posted from GAMESCENES: Art in the age of videogames
05/05/2013
Event: Cascadia (May 31 - June 21, 2013, Collar Works, Troy, New York)

Cable Griffith, World Two Overview (Night), 2013, acrylic on canvas, 58 x 40 inches

CASCADIA

May 31 - June 21, 2013
Reception: May 31, 5 - 9pm
Collar Works
Troy, New York

Exhibiting artists include: Aja Rose Bond, Anna Fidler, Michelle Forsyth, Cable Griffith, Britta Johnson, Molly Magai, and Ryan Molenkamp.

"Cascadia explores the current artistic climate of the Pacific Northwest, specifically: Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. A geographic area that has several times proposed to become its own independent nation, this North American stretch has always stood uniquely against its adjacent states and provinces. Captivating with its distinctly coastal landscape that contain natural wonders such as sea stacks, volcanoes and rain forests, it is easy to see how folklore of mythological creatures such as The Sasquatch dwell in its territories. Making connections between dramatic landforms and individual and cultural nuances, the curators seek to create a visual forum for northwest artists that address themes involving the Pacific Northwest – exploring the outcome of creating a wormhole from the northwest to the northeast."

Cable Griffith, Return to the Source 2013 acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 inches

Cable Griffith, Side-scroll World 1-12 2013

Cable Griffith, World One Overview 2009 acrylic on canvas 48 x 60 inches Collection of Microsoft Corporation

"Influenced by modernist painting and early video game imagery, my recent work explores the connections and potentials of both. Notions of play, practice, improvisation, and exploration add an additional narrative to the relationship of symbols, actions, and reactions." (Cable Griffith, 2013)

Cable Griffith, Side-scroll World 1-6 2013 

" The “Side-scroll" series reference this perspective as both unified and separate paintings, suggesting a narrative that relies on taking a broader view." (Cable Griffith, 2013)

"Early video games have been a strong influence on me ever since I started playing them as a kid.  My dad was copywriter for early Atari commercials and we had an Atari system in our home soon after it came out.  Looking back, it's funny to think that the 8-bit graphics were so mesmerizing, but they were. It wasn't hard for me to suspend my disbelief and become engrossed into the block-y, wonky worlds created forme to navigate.  As the technology advanced, I continued to be amazed at how increasingly "realistic" the graphics progressed, with a finer pixel resolution and ever-expanding color palette.  I am still attracted to video games and enjoy playing them (when time permits), but I've been increasingly interested in how my "visual history" has been informed so strongly both by the early, flat, side-scrolling games and my love of painting" (Cable Griffith, 2012)

Submitted by Matteo Bittanti

Cable Griffith News & Updates - February 2013

World II Overview (detail), 2013, acrylic on canvas, 58 x 38 inches. Upcoming... FlotsamJetsamLagan: The Oneness Works on paper by Cable Griffith February 6 - March 2, 2013 Opening Reception: Thursday, February 7, 6-8 pm SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA FlotsamJetsamLagan: The Oneness is a collection of works on paper, created over a span of seven years. Presented as a unified body, these seemingly disparate works represent various curiosities, experiments, precursors, and oddities of Griffith's practice. As a whole, this grouping favors exploration over consistency, and embraces both successes and failures as one. Image: Battery, 2005, ink and acrylic on paper, 9 x 12 inches Chamber Music Curated by Scott Lawrimore February 9, 2013 - May 5, 2013 Opening Reception: Friday, February 8, 7:30-9 pm Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA For Chamber Music, the Frye Art Museum has commissioned thirty-six Seattle artists to create new work in response to musical compositions based on James Joyce’s volume of poetry of the same name. The artists included in Chamber Music span generations and reflect a broad aesthetic spectrum. What unites them is a shared dedication to artist-generated activities that strengthen Seattle’s arts community beyond their own admirable art practices. Chamber Music is thus both a celebration of individual mark-making and a cooperative composition about love for this city and how artists choose to leave their mark on it. Image: Of Us and Them II, acrylic on paper, 2013, 16 x 20 inches Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Start March 11 - April 13, 2013 Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 13, 5-8 pm Kittredge Gallery University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start is a solo exhibition that embraces the influence of early video game imagery, systems, and themes in Griffith’s current practice. Featuring all-new work, this show will include drawings, paintings, sculpture, and an interactive video game/painting collaboration with Brent Watanabe. Image: Side-scroll World 2 (detail), 2012, oil on 10 panels, 8 x 3.5 feet.

Interview with Susanna Bluhm on "Islands" at SOIL Gallery, September, 2011

Susanna Bluhm and Cable Griffith: Islands from SOIL Gallery on Vimeo.

Interview with Susanna Bluhm and Cable Griffith on their exhibition, "Islands" (September 2011) at SOIL Gallery in Seattle, WA. Filmed and edited by Cornish College of the Arts students, Reva Keller, Jenny Linquist, and Karina Nyquist.

susanna-bluhm.com

Monkeybicycle

I'm honored to be featured on the cover of the lates issue of Monkeybicycle, a great literary journal founded by Stephen Seighman.  I met Stephen in Seattle, way back in 2002, just around the time he started Monkeybicycle.  Now, the journal has both an online and print presence and features a wide variety or literary greatness. Buy one for yourself here: monkeybicycle.net.  Thanks Stephen and Monkeybicycle for including me!  

Cover image is "Pink Tower Collapse", originally posted on my Drawing blog.

Side-scrolling detail

Continued...

Side-scroll adventure continues...

Side-scrolling painting continues...

Side-scrolling Painting begins

Early video games have been a strong influence on me ever since I started playing them as a kid.  My dad was copywriter for early Atari commercials and we had an Atari system in our home soon after it came out.  Looking back, it's funny to think that the 8-bit graphics were so mesmerizing, but they were. It wasn't hard for me to suspend my disbelief and become engrossed into the block-y, wonky worlds created forme to navigate.  As the technology advanced, I continued to be amazed at how increasingly "realistic" the graphics progressed, with a finer pixel resolution and ever-expanding color palette.  I am still attracted to video games and enjoy playing them (when time permits), but I've been increasingly interested in how my "visual history" has been informed so strongly both by the early, flat, side-scrolling games and my love of painting.  I have experimented with techniques that have attempted to bring the flatness of painting into 3D space, but I keep coming back to the challenge and contradiction of painting, aka, the "hanging window." I love paintings that are both so obviously flat and seductively spatial at the same time.  As with the early video games, it's not hard for me to suspend my disbelief and fall into an even clumsily-painted world.  My current paintings are composed of distinct and separate parts (brush strokes) that pose as "things" within an invented world.  And all these painted parts are, at the same time, a representation of something within the window, while existing as a direct and obvious product of the tool that made it (i.e., the line or "thing" is as wide as the brush that made it). This is not unsimilar to early pixel graphics.  Another similarity between painting and the video games I love is the promise of vast adventure through an uncharted land.  In painting, I've struggled between "knowing" and "not knowing" for a long time (side note: Here's a great clip of Philip Guston in his studio, talking about this position). To me, "knowing" feels like a resolution, and "not knowing" feels like endless possibility.  Manifest Destiny of the imagination, perhaps.  I've made paintings in the past that related directly to previous paintings, or picked up where others left off, but this new series does that in a very noticeable way, while combining all the the ideas I've just related.  These "side-scrolling" paintings are a flat as can be, with still an openness of space and the ever-ongoing promise of discovery.  Plus, I'm having a blast so far working on them.  I really don't have any clue where they're going.  It's almost like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, with paint on canvas. Although in this case, all the possibilities with eventually exist at once.  I can decide to move up, down, left, or right, in a ongoing, "Exquisite Corpse" abstract landscape.  I can't wait to see where this leads and I'm excited to share my travels on the blog.

Studio Visit with Sharon Butler

Artist/Writer Sharon Butler was recently in town for her show with Allison Manch at Season.  She also led a discussion on DIY Arts Writing and visited some Seattle artists' studios.  I was lucky to be among them.  Link to her post about her visit below.

Two Coats of Paint: Seattle studio visit: Cable Griffith: Cable Griffith , the Gallery Director at Cornish College of the Arts , paints peculiar worlds, full of familiar elements such as trees, lake...

photo: Sharon Butler

NEW WEBSITE!

Pleased to announce my new website: cablegriffith.com

I just hope my blog doesn't get jealous.  One nice thing about still having both is that it frees up the blog to be more spontaneous, informal, and bloggish.  But it does feel nice to have a clean and concise website.  Just don't tell my blog that.

Forecast: Pink Albedo Thunderstorm

 Pink Albedo Thunderstorm. 2010. acrylic on canvas. 36 x 48 inches.

Threshold (Gathering)

Threshold (Gathering). 2010. acrylic on canvas. 30 x 40 inches.

SOIL New Members Show

The Mountain. 2010. acrylic on canvas. 30 x 40 inches.

Terrarium (Hill). 2010. aquarium, plexi, acrylic, light. 12 x 10 x 20 inches.

More images and words from the show on SOIL's website.  Thoughts by Erin Shafkind here.