Against the Grain 3, 2025 Ink on Paper, Framed 400 x 300mm
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Against the Grain 2, 2025 Ink on Paper, Framed 400 x 300mm
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Against the Grain 1, 2025 Ink on Paper, Framed 400 x 300mm
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Against the Grain 5, 2025 Ink on Paper, Framed 400 x 300mm
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Against the Grain 4, 2025 Ink on Paper, Framed 400 x 300mm
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Belinda Griffiths is a conceptual artist who works within the disciplines of painting and printmaking and explores the expressive power of the gestural mark. When coupled with depictions of the human form, this push and pull between mark and form, has the potential to dig deeper and communicate something of the human experience that becomes more authentic, more visceral.
Towards the end last year Belinda started a work depicting a standing figure, eyes closed against and amongst sweeping gestural brushstrokes. She was struck by the two realities that exist side-by-side in her work - the dynamic movement produced by the mark making and the quiet stillness which is wrestled back into the work amidst the chaos.
To Griffiths’ this felt like a metaphor and during a particularly frenetic period of her life she was interested to explore this duality. This exploration led two series of paintings - Against the Grain & Golden – both of which speak to the expressive power of the gestural mark.
Against the Grain is a series of minimal paintings using black ink on paper. The unpredictable nature of ink meant that the medium would run and pool and stain in unexpected ways. Once wiped back, the ink leaves traces of past brushstroke and hints at a textured surface. Rather than being put off by this loss of control, Belinda embraces it as part of the process allowing these unexpected surprises to inform the next step in the process.
With the Golden series, Griffiths’ aimed to carve out moments of stillness, that appear to reverberate softly - like a whisper. In these works, sweeping and intuitive brushstrokes, dissect the materiality of the medium and explore the negative space in which they are presented. Warm flashes of ochre, set against the pared back brush strokes hold space in the void – while her calligraphic gestures and poetic compositions, fuse the performative and conceptual activities of painting into a single process.
As Michael Dunn recently noted, Griffiths’ work “combines technical skill and flair with meditation on the purpose of life, it’s impermanence and haunting beauty".
Belinda Griffiths is a conceptual artist who works within the disciplines of painting and printmaking and explores the expressive power of the gestural mark. When coupled with depictions of the human form, this push and pull between mark and form, has the potential to dig deeper and communicate something of the human experience that becomes more authentic, more visceral.
Towards the end last year Belinda started a work depicting a standing figure, eyes closed against and amongst sweeping gestural brushstrokes. She was struck by the two realities that exist side-by-side in her work - the dynamic movement produced by the mark making and the quiet stillness which is wrestled back into the work amidst the chaos.
To Griffiths’ this felt like a metaphor and during a particularly frenetic period of her life she was interested to explore this duality. This exploration led two series of paintings - Against the Grain & Golden – both of which speak to the expressive power of the gestural mark.
Against the Grain is a series of minimal paintings using black ink on paper. The unpredictable nature of ink meant that the medium would run and pool and stain in unexpected ways. Once wiped back, the ink leaves traces of past brushstroke and hints at a textured surface. Rather than being put off by this loss of control, Belinda embraces it as part of the process allowing these unexpected surprises to inform the next step in the process.
With the Golden series, Griffiths’ aimed to carve out moments of stillness, that appear to reverberate softly - like a whisper. In these works, sweeping and intuitive brushstrokes, dissect the materiality of the medium and explore the negative space in which they are presented. Warm flashes of ochre, set against the pared back brush strokes hold space in the void – while her calligraphic gestures and poetic compositions, fuse the performative and conceptual activities of painting into a single process.
As Michael Dunn recently noted, Griffiths’ work “combines technical skill and flair with meditation on the purpose of life, it’s impermanence and haunting beauty".
