Saturday, July 18, 2009

New Work; Clifford Griffin


Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin", Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009
Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin" (detail view), Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009

I just finished this painting - in fact, I still have some residual white paint on my finger tips. You're looking at what is probably my first painting with a figure in it since grad school. It's not that I'm against figurative work, but I haven't been inspired to paint figures in some time.

Recently I was asked by local artist Katie Taft to participate in the tentatively titled "Biographic" show at Abecedarian gallery (running from September 18th to October 24th). As the title indicates, the show is related to stories about people. It will be accompanied by a written component (in the works). Some artists are going to approach it as an interview, others as more of a tribute (like mine). I'm actually way ahead of the due date - a rare thing for me.

I've been really interested in Clifford Griffin's story lately so I thought I'd roll with that momentum and do this painting of him. I made a couple of trips up to his memorial a couple of weeks ago - which is located above Silver Plume - the hike was written about on this blog here. I've also done a lot of research about Clifford Griffin at the Denver Public Library Western History department. There aren't many images of Clifford but I did find a couple of really artistic compositions of him sitting on some outcroppings above Silver Plume and for this painting I combined those with my own photos of the site he is buried at:

Photo of the Griffin Memorial by Nathan Abels

I'll have more info closer to the time of the exhibition.

3 comments:

Steven Abels said...

Nathan,

Samantha and I really like this picture. It reminds us of many Asian paintings we have seen.

Steve

vondavis said...

That's a nice piece of work,Nathan!
Are repro's available?
Silver Plume and Georgetown have always been favorites of mine...

Nathan said...

No repro's available. Sorry Gregory. Once in a blue moon I'll do a print edition, but most of my works are originals.

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