THE ART SCENE: Griffin's images of the Ukrainian village (08/10/97)

THE ART SCENE: Griffin's images of the Ukrainian village

by Daria Darewych

Christopher Griffin is a young Canadian artist residing in Toronto. Yet, his recent solo exhibition at the Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation on June 3 to 18 was titled "Selo" and was entirely dedicated to the theme of a Ukrainian village. His large oils on canvas and ink drawings are filled with mundane images that capture the spirit and endurance of the people of present-day rural Ukraine.

Christopher Griffin is not of Ukrainian background. His ancestors on his mother's side were German and on his father's side a mix of Scottish, Irish and Welsh. He is married to a Ukrainian, however, and in the fall of 1996 he accompanied his in-laws, Stefan and Marta Korbutiak of Winnipeg, to Ukraine. After the initial introduction to his father-in-law's village and family, he ventured out on his own, cycling for five weeks through the villages near Kolomyia on an old fashioned, single-speed bicycle.

With a bamboo reed pen and ink, he sketched the people and the countryside: old men and women at their chores, working in the fields or resting at home, rural scenes of cattle, haystacks, geese and bowls of mushrooms.

Although genre painting was popular in 17th century Dutch art, it did not become generally acceptable in Europe until the 19th century. In Ukrainian art, genre scenes of peasants and village life have attracted artists for years, starting with Taras Shevchenko. Realist painters of the late 19th century like Kostiantyn Trutovsky, Mykola Pymonenko and Serhii Vasylkivsky focused on ethnographic aspects of village life. In western Ukraine Olena Kulchytska and Ivan Trush were especially fascinated by ethnographic themes of the Carpathian region. In the 1920s and 1930s Mykhailo Boichuk and his followers glorified the peasants and their labor. The imposition of Socialist Realism by the Communist Party mandated that artists depict workers and labor in a highly idealized, heroic manner.

Typical Ukrainian ethnographic elements such as embroideries, thatched roofs and sunflowers are not apparent in Mr. Griffin's work, nor is he interested in Ukrainian folkculture or an idealized portrayal of village life. To Mr. Griffin a village represents a close social unit, a microcosm with its own micro-climate and culture. "The people I encountered in the villages," he said "made wonderful studies. They possess a visual character which only hard living can endow."

Primarily attracted to older people, Mr. Griffin found their identity visually more stimulating, their connectedness to the land impressive. Asked why there are no young faces in his work he said young people in Ukraine resemble their counterparts throughout the world in their jeans and t-shirts, whereas the old ones are self-sufficient, strong and independent. They opened their hearts to him despite his limited knowledge of Ukrainian.

Mr. Griffin's paintings are figurative and within the expressionist tradition of bold strokes, expressive forms and colors indicative of a correlation between the emotional state of the artist and his response to observable phenomena. Color, form, line and texture are explored for their expressive possibilities in order to convey the experienced sensations.

In "From the Pasture" Mr. Griffin has portrayed a village scene with a few head of cattle being herded down a dirt road lined with houses. Sharing the road with the cows is a man pushing his bicycle laden with a heavy sack of potatoes. The juxtapositioning of beasts with primitive machine and man is a reflection of a way of life prevalent in contemporary rural areas of Ukraine. The predominantly blue, violet and ochre palette suggests evening, but also conveys feelings of melancholy and nostalgia.

A silhouette of an old woman with a cane tending a single cow dominates the composition in "Woman and Cow in Krementsi." This is a typical scene throughout Ukraine. The palette of blues from deep cerulean to cobalt, ultramarine and dark blue of the figures contrasts with the ochre foreground and brightness of the lemon-lime background of field and sky to convey a mood of eerie disquiet. There are no details, no descriptive context, just a few silhouettes of trees in the distance. The pigment has been applied vigorously and with a minimum of modeling. The dark foreground and illuminated background suggest a symbolic reading in terms of the passage of time, of old age and the expectations of the future.

"Scythers" is a large vertical canvas rich in textured blues, ochres, and greys. The pose of the reapers of grass echoes Van Gogh's sower in the painting with that title. The heavy impasto of oils, the boldly textured surfaces and the bird's eye view also appear to be inspired by the work of the Dutch artist, but the composition, palette and emotional impact are original and different. The subject, composition and light contrasts suggest an uphill struggle faced by a society using scythes in a technologically advanced age.

The interior of a simple peasant home with a typical built-in "pich" (stove), laundry drying and a rug with deer hanging on the wall is depicted in "Ivan and Maria." The man sits at the table while the woman is shown drying dishes. The composition is frontal; the palette is dominated by mauves, blues, blue-greens and off-whites which do not represent the local color of the interior, but convey an atmosphere of calm and simplicity, suggest an event witnessed, a memory recalled and cherished.

The largest painting (4 feet x12 feet) is also the most striking and meaningful. Two crows in flight in opposite directions held together by their tangled claws completely dominate two canvases. Their wings are clipped by the horizontal edges; their beaks are open in a soundless scream. Their dark menacing silhouettes contrast sharply with the much lighter background. The swirling, heavy pigment adds to the turbulence of the image. Crows are a common sight throughout Ukraine, both in the cities and rural areas. In Ukraine they are considered to be harbingers of bad news. The intended meaning becomes apparent only in association with the title which is "History of Ukraine." The images in this work stand as metaphors for the people of Ukraine. The artist has successfully transcended the commonplace and moved to the symbolic, which was only suggested in some of his other works.

However, not all of the paintings in the exhibition are as satisfying in terms of a unified vision, painted surface and composition. Some of the large figure compositions such as "Solitude" and "Anastasia" are not convincingly rendered. Others such as "Rain in Balyntsi" are uneven in execution. There were 51 paintings and 20 ink drawings on paper in the exhibition. A few pictures could have been eliminated and the exhibition would have been more unified. Nonetheless, the exhibit presented a solid body of recent work that is well-focused and represents a substantial accomplishment for such a young artist. As an involved chronicler of rural life and as a strong colorist who obviously enjoys working in oils, Mr. Griffin comes across as a sensitive and engaging artist, an artist whose career is worth following.

Born in Toronto in 1966 Mr. Griffin grew up in rural Ontario. Since 1992 he has had 12 solo exhibits in Canada, the United States, Honduras and Guatemala. His next solo show is scheduled to open at the Oseredok Gallery in Winnipeg in 1998.

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