Noelle Griffiths

Griffiths has established a world-wide reputation as a maker of artists’ books from her studio base in Maentwrog. She studied at St. Martin’s School of Art and is a painter of high repute working with oil and water-based paints. For this project Griffiths has taken on one of the most influential abstract painters represented in the national collection who was also her external examiner for her degree.

Noelle Griffiths is working with

John Hoyland

‘Ligeia’

acrylic on cotton duck

1978

In response to John Hoyland’s painting ‘Ligeia’ I am in interested in exploring the creative process. How do we make paintings and why? The insecurities and questions we ask ourselves. What is more important - the process or the end result?

I regularly write about work in progress, making thumbnail sketches in my notebook and analysing the choices and shifts in direction as I paint. For Re-take Re-invent I am making a series of paintings, recording the process and also making an artist’s book for each painting. Each day I record each of the colours I use, and at the end of this project I will make a series of unique artist’s books which combine the colour book pages with text.

John Hoyland painted Ligeia in 1978 as part of a series which uses a diagonal composition. In 1979 BBC Arena filmed Hoyland in his studio starting and completing a new painting in this series. I have chosen to work with the painting Ligeia and the film Six Days in September for the ReTake/ReInvent Project.

The Arena film explores the creative process of making a painting. John Hoyland talks in a direct and honest way, making observations that resonate with artists who work in the isolation of their studio.

“...it’s so fragile an activity making a painting, trying to bring a painting into the world....” Day One.

“...just making a painting seems like such a ridiculous activity....nobody wants it particularly and you don’t know if you can do it, you don’t know if you are strong enough....” Day Two.

“...I’m trying to coax the painting along but I’m not trying to impose on it. I’m not trying to force a rigid idea on it....I’m trying to let the paint work for me, do things for me....” Day Five.

I have made a series of paintings and recorded my creative process for each painting.

I used as my starting point the architectural spaces of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902-1988). His use of colour, light and shadow, water and reflection helped to focus my exploration of layered thin colour and stained surface. I have used acrylic paint on canvas and paper. In my paintings I have explored composition alongside the subtle shifts and relationships of colour, tone and surface. I have been searching for a quality, an atmosphere, a point of ‘rightness’.

Whilst painting I recorded my thoughts, observations and feelings alongside sketches of work in progress. Each day I painted a record of each colour I mixed and applied to the painting. Using these pages of colour swipes alongside text I have made an artist’s book for each painting. In two concertina books I printed excerpts from the transcript of the film alongside colours used for two of my paintings. In other books I printed my own words, sketches or photographs of my studio.

Each book records the making of a painting and the creative process involved. I have called each book FRAGILE.