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Friday, July 4, 2003
Flight and light motifs inspire the art of two self-taught brothers
When pilots lose the horizon, danger lurks. When artists forgo the horizon, inspiration sails.
Brothers Scott and Clint Griffin know both concepts well. Their grandfather, father and two uncles flew airplanes -- their dad as a bush pilot based on Ontario's Scugog Island. The brothers broke tradition, forging earthbound fantasies now in "Blame Canada" at Garde Rail Gallery. Self-taught, they straddle outsider/folk and contemporary art. "Contemporary self-taught" best fits these twentysomething, educated artists who tackle conceptual motifs in standard art materials and trash-bin-derived treasures. Though evicted from apartments for pack-rat habits, the Griffins keep going, transforming relics into muted musings on the dreary North's wintry twilight and emptiness. Scott Griffin, tattooing sheet metal, arc-welds apparitions of trees, airplanes and figures. In the ecru "Frozen Fruit Tree," two boys, helpless before nature, stare at leafless branches. On slate blue, two vigorous paddlers steer a canoe. In "Red Carpeting," nine women dance to almost audible tunes.
Repeatedly, an airplane hovers; their father always beyond reach. On sky-blue corrugated metal, five people run from an incoming seaplane. On mustard yellow, two boys race happily toward one.
Clint Griffin takes other journeys. Chiseling layered paint off wood, he carves maps. They read like tattered charts, metaphors for chipping away at the Earth's resources. Reversing his process, he nails books and 1 1/2-inch stacks of photos together, accumulating power from individual parts.
Although shunning sky-sea-earth delineations, the Griffins fathom up new horizons, blurring art categories. And like their relatives, they're flying high.
"Blame Canada" runs through July 26 at Garde Rail Gallery, 4860 Rainier Ave. S., 206-721-0107. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6p.m.,
-- Judy Wagonfeld
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