statement:
My artistic practice is based in figurative oil painting and is motivated by my interest in human experience and behaviour. The additive and subtractive process of painting allows me to invent characters to perform distilled tableaux on themes ranging from gender identity, power, sexuality, and relationships. Over the past number of years I have worked in thematic series, beginning each with a conceptual framework and then allowing the layered painting processes to determine the eventual form and content of the work. Examples of past bodies of work are the installation Peep: Beyond the Eye of the Beholder (1996) which addressed issues of power dynamics ; Stories of Girls which examined female adolescent experience and the development of socio-psycho-sexual identity; and the Karate Girl paintings(1996/7) which dealt with womens' negotiation of the urban environment. Ongoing has been my interest in sexuality, intimacy, and the persistance of desire in projects such as Dystopic Romances and Serial Romance Paintings.
Eliza Griffiths