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Piece by Kate McCormick, October 2008.
Bill Griffin's work is not easy to place in a contemporary Irish art context. He is entirely himself and his depictions of other worldliness are not lyrically expressed. Instead, they embody an almost visceral physicality. Griffin, a self-taught artist who has studiously avoided the college system, remains unfettered by the constant breakdown of concepts in order to justify visual decisions made. His visual language does not originate in academia, affording him a freedom to respond to other impulses with a focus on individuality as opposed to a collective movement. He is completely in the present moment when he paints; his point of departure is the act of painting itself.
Recently, I had an amusing argument with Bill, who prior to my mentioning it had never considered himself to be a representational artist. Many of the paintings from this body of work are based on recognisable fantastical themes including gladiators and charioteers. For Griffin, the larger than life characters such as the Philosopher of Jade Street , are in many respects merely compositional motifs and vehicles for self-expression. What is seemingly important to him is the gesture of painting itself. Although his style is not representational in the traditional sense, these are subverted images of traditional subjects. However, for imagery that could so easily be understood as symbolic, he possesses a disarming casualness about the subject matter of his work.
When questioned about specific characters within the paintings, Griffin either places the painting within an anecdotal setting or reverses the question and asks what the viewer sees within the image. There is a reluctance in him to provide an explanation, which may resonate personally and emotionally. One description gleaned from the artist in relation to the large painting of Don Quixote, was "He's knackered. The horse is knackered. I'm knackered - even the windmill is knackered". Therefore, justifiably, it can be noted that the imagery chosen may not always embody the essence of the painting. The vision retains the pictorial act, albeit not by the objects represented. The figure becomes a motif and the objects within the painting become the vehicle for an underlying personal narrative that is far less easily read.
Multiple faces and figures often create walls in Bill Griffin's paintings, flattening the picture plane and turning each individual into a representative of a collective whole. Charming costumes and brightly painted hats rendered in dense and vivid colour are regularly used to allude to frivolity; but this frivolity is betrayed by the lack of interaction between the figures who never make eye contact. The arrangement of the figure motif becomes the symbol, as opposed to the specific characters themselves. At first glance, these are large gregarious and outspoken paintings produced during a rapid feverish process; but many are imbued by an underlying sadness and introspection.
Griffin possesses both a freedom of spirit and an ability to paint directly from his subconscious. He works for hours on end, day and night, collapsing every now and then for quick naps that allow him to remain relatively in tune with his dream state. He explains " the difference between memory and painting is the moment now".
It is easier to understand his stream of consciousness methodology when you realise that his imagination is fuelled by forty years working and travelling in some of the world's most image rich countries. Starting with his upbringing on the north side of Cork City, Bill travelled through London, where he first started painting, and on into the North Sea, the Middle East, Russia, Africa and India. The colourful and exciting career Griffin had in the oil industry has formed the backbone of so many great and hilarious stories, but he carries with him corresponding feelings of guilt and loss connected with his complicity in the oil business. By romanticising characters and local stories within paintings such as Four pints for Jimmy Barry, Griffin signifies a pining for a return to innocence, a longing to mathematically restore what he feels is inherently missing. There is a theory that in order to create, one must first destroy; that within all works of art exists both constructive and destructive elements. One must wonder in this artist's case, is this act of construction an attempt to replace that which has been destroyed along the way?
Either way it is Bill Griffin's fierce power of observation that feeds into his subconscious, producing the fantastical and wholly original imagery; but it is primarily his emotional response as an artist that informs the content of these bold and generous paintings.