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photo by Caryl Roese 2005
. CHRIS GRIFFIN
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"Welsh Chapel", 1997
acrylic on paper
55x46cm
"Assemblage", 1976-95
mixed media on board
76x61cm
"Small Enclosure", 2000
acrylic on canvas
52x48cm(in private collections)
Chris Griffin was born in 1945 in Maesycwmmer, Mid Glamorgan. He trained in 1969-72 at Gloucestershire College of Art Cheltenham, from 1972 to 1975 at the Royal College of Art London, and in 1975-76 at the Cardiff College of Art. He has a studio in Oriel Canfas in Cardiff.
Artist's Statement: "The formal qualities of the South Wales landscape continue to provide me with a disparate and dynamic range of shapes, colours and textures that are the starting point for my paintings. Once the familiar subject matter has been established, there follows a process, loosely described as painting, that involves scraping, glazing, scrumbling and other unconventional methods of working, which gives me a rough and worked surface that is an equivalent for the scarred and rugged landscape. During this process, colours and shapes take on a life of their own. The colour schemes become emotional and not the original object colour, and the composition changes to the needs of the design within the rectangular boundaries of the picture frame and not the perspective of perceived reality. Given this articulate freedom the paintings become lyrical and expressive statements that celebrate the painting process as much as the subjects that inspire them." (quoted by kind permission of the artist from an artist's statement of October 2001).
Awards: 1972 Travelling Scholarship Gloc.Col.Art, 1975 Anstruther Prize Roy.Col.Art, 1997 & 1998 Laing Landscape Competition (National Prize & Regional Prize).
Commissions: 2004 private commission for a triptych of the Rhondda.
