Mitch Griffiths

Mitch Griffiths’ work builds on the tradition of oil painting that is over 600 years old. This method of painting has dominated the history of art due to its ability to produce subtle variations in colour and shade, allowing artists to render the subject with an unmatched realism. Griffiths’ painstaking canvas are a full expression of what can be achieved in the medium when fully mastered. His canvases are meticulous and he renders objects and the human anatomy in a way that is true to life throughout all his canvases.

His use of oil paint incorporates techniques used by some of the most celebrated artists in history such as Leonardo da Vinci, Velázquez and Caravaggio. Beyond his use of the medium, Griffiths has also studied the paintings of the Old Masters and adopted artistic devices, motifs and methods of arranging compositions from the great painters of the past.

Griffiths draws inspiration from a wide range of artists. As he explains, ‘the number of artists that I’ve been inspired by, I’d have to say that it would be countless’. However, particularly strong affinities exist between his paintings and the work of Caravaggio, whose pioneering dramatic effects, intense light contrasts and representation of unidealised, real people changed the course of art history.

Griffiths draws from these deeply-rooted artistic traditions and visual ideas to comment on contemporary culture and the challenges of our time; he uses the past to address the present.

Like so many traditional paintings, much of the power of Griffiths’ work derives from symbolism. Griffiths employs traditional iconography used throughout the history of art, symbols of pop culture and even a playful combination of the two. His paintings include the representation of skulls, signifying mortality, and Beats by Dre headphones, containing all the associations of blocking out the world with noise cancelling technology. However, some of his most powerful motifs subvert traditional symbols, for example on the head of one of his protagonists he replaced a crown with a drone. 

Another potent symbol that appears in many of his works is a blue bird, a reference to Twitter (now rebranded as ‘X’). However, fluttering around the canvas in the medium of oil painting, they evoke the white dove that appears in so much religious art as a symbol of the holy spirit. This motif seems to imply the extent to which we have dedicated ourselves to social media, a sort of 21^st century religion.

Griffiths’ work is a blend of contemporary issues and the long tradition of allegorical painting in Western art. Using the style of the Old Masters, he incorporates motifs to depict contemporary tensions around social media, politics and cultural discourse. These include the British and American flags which raise questions around the notion of patriotism, and hazmat suits which are pertinent in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

Although at first glance his compositions appear as Old Master paintings, the inclusion of distinctly contemporary clothing and other items like phones, fast food and drones, bring them into the present day. Griffiths views his work as a means of social commentary, asking questions about contemporary culture without passing judgement.