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.

Temple of Vacuous Confidence

Temple of Vacuous Confidence.  2010. styrofoam, wood, cords, models, mirrors, paint.  6' x 12' x 1'

Earlier this year, ACT Theatre approached SOIL about commissioning SOIL artists to create window installations for their sidewalk windows.  I thought, "So, you'll PAY us to make art?!" That was a radical concept for me to understand, but after giving it some thought, I agreed that it made some sense.  Not having really made much sculpture before, I was excited to give it a whirl.  More info on the SOIL website here.  Each window represented a decade of American culture since the 1950's.  I had the 1980's...  Materialism, rabid consumerism, glitz-y exteriors without much content, Lamborghinis, speedboats, hot pink, etc.  On display through August 30 at ACT Theatre.

The Navigator

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

The Interloper

The Interloper. 2010. acrylic on canvas. 36 x 48 inches.

This one was previously posted, but I dragged it out of storage and fixed some things, vastly improving it.  Actually, the previous post showed it before I messed it up by over-painting it.  This post is a result of painting out those previous additions (not posted on the blog), and adding some other subtle changes that, to me, correct the balance.  I'd like to note that the title changed from the previous post to one that I think fits much better.  It's inspired by a comment my friend Michelle Witten made when I was working on it, referring to the big pink form, as if it had just crashed the party.  Everything else in the painting is like, "Who invited HIM?"

Land of Suspended Belief

Land of Suspended Belief: Temple.  2010. acrylic on vinyl.  5 x 9 x 3.5 feet.

I posted a few images of this piece before, but wanted to post some better ones with an explanation of the process.  SOIL was invited to install a very large group show at the Seattle Design Center for 3 months, filling an otherwise empty 11,000 square foot space.  With a bunch of new members (myself included), we filled the space surprisingly easily.  I was excited to show a bunch of smaller plexiglas paintings for the first time, but I had heard that the space might offer some unusual opportunities for installations.  Once I arrived, I saw what was basically a huge empty frame in the middle of one of the larger rooms.  It was perfect for a large multi-layered vinyl painting, similar to the plexiglas ones, but much, much larger.  I had previously done a vinyl painting installation prototype at 2009 KAC REDUX event, and was eager to try it again.  This one would be more contained and viewable from both sides.

After preparing the ceiling and walls with the hardware to keep the vinyl evenly space, I started improvising the painting, one vinyl sheet at a time, painting on the floor.  Obsessed with temple forms and symbols, I built one that descended from its peak, down and out towards the viewer on either side.  The temple is surround by layers of flowers and exotic plants, threatening to eventually over-grow the supposed man-man structure.  The reference to the tower or temple has several meanings for me, mostly relating to ideas of faith, art, spirituality, and practice.  It seemed appropriate then, that I was on my knees for the duration of the painting, building the temple, mark by mark, layer by layer.

I've never made a painting that has two viewable sides.  It was really interesting to be making decisions about the foreground on one side, realizing it was going to become the background on the other.  It's also very satisfying to create illusion without really having to do so.  I can adjust the relative size of marks, color saturation, and value, but the space is actual.  Lighting this piece was definitely a challenge, as you can probably tell from the photos.  Without the proper lights in the right places, the space isn't nearly as effective.  The shininess doesn't bother me though.  I quite like the artificiality of the plastic, and its reference to consumer products.  After all, the SDC is basically a mall.

The show is up through May 28, and you can find more info at the SOIL website here.

Collaboration Land

 Glyphland. 2010. paper-mache, foliage, toothpicks, fimo, paint, glue on gatorboard glyph

A while back, Artist Troy Gua invited me to participate in a collaborative project between himself and a boat load of other local artists.  Inspired by the relationship between current simplifications of online text communication and the hieroglyphics of earlier civilizations, Troy designed and cut out individual and unique symbols or "glyphs" for other artists to complete.  Each symbol represents a collaborative relationship between the two artists,  and once finally installed at Monarch Contemporary, the individual glyphs formed a collective statement about sharing, community, and visual language.  The exhibit, "Meet Greet Rinse Repeat" just came down yesterday.

For my glyph (which arrived as a flat gator board cut-out), I wanted to go 3D.  I covered it with a paper-mache pulp, sculpting it into a series of rolling hills.  After putting on green turf, I built tiny bridges, towers, and viewing platforms out of toothpicks.  Then little fimo flowers and fluffy trees finished it off.  The result was "Glyphland". It was one of my first sculptures ever, and I wouldn't have made it without Troy's offer.   I'm very thankful to have been part of the project and I'm looking forward to many other collaborative projects this year...