Matlok Griffiths
‘Chic & Contemporary Holiday Paintings’
After a recent holiday in South East Asia, Melbourne painter Matlok Griffiths shifted from his previously primary palette to the pastels and hues reminiscent of the fine light, French shutters and Áo Dài traditional dress of Vietnam and Laos.
Incorporating obscure, layered objects, his newest body of work also features iconic emblems of the region like the Lacoste/’low-cost’ crocodile, the banana, and the outdoor ‘free-air’ barber shop.
Griffiths’ clean finishes belie the previous incarnation of the canvas. And as an artist who pays great weight to the evolution of the work, he points to the colourful bleed, reminding us there’s much more than a formulaic holiday-home furnishing in play.
‘Out of Touch’
After his hugely successful April 2012 show: ‘Chic & Contemporary Holiday Paintings’, we again invited Matlok to exhibit at Chapter House Lane, and the following year, presented 'Out of Touch' to the city of Melbourne. Prior to the exhibition we visited the artist in his Abbotsford Convent studio and I wrote about it here.
Of his show, ‘Out of Touch’, I wrote: 'Drawing on Griffiths’ love of the exotic and his heady suite of holiday ephemera, the collection combines colour, line, abstraction and iconography to deliver pictures with punch. In contrast to previous, painterly pieces, he alternates self-fashioned totemic instruments to create lead-lined, brushed or scraped surfaces, amid which enamel, acrylic and oil collect to tell his stories. Along with the best titles in the business, the images are steeped in referential treats – amid which you’ll find a motley crew: Matisse, Guston, Hockney, and Captain Beefheart.'
The show title – apt in its physicality – comes from Ashley Crawford’s catalogue essay for an earlier show ‘All these words keep getting in our way’: “Works that rely upon gut association, upon things such as colour and form and, dare we say it, even emotion, are flagrantly dismissed as out of touch.” Crawford writes.
He suggests Griffiths’ work is an antidote to the disease taking root in the art world – one that is spawned by academics and spread by bureaucrats’ bastardisation of philosophy. His assessment is Griffiths will be crushed. But not by us. We are definitely on the dancefloor with him.
‘Push pineapple. Shake a tree.'
Matlok Griffiths is currently represented by Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney. Check out his website and follow him on Instagram @matlokgritsngravy. You won't regret it.
L. Installation view, Poppa Jazz/Rum Boogie and Pots & Jugs & Pot. R. Book With Unusual Shadow, oil, enamel and acrylic on board, 48x39cms.