The Other Side of the Mirror and Entwined Systems
by Coleman Griffith
by Coleman Griffith
The Other Side of the Mirror, side A and Entwined Systems, side B, describe the relationship between man and nature through the story of Greek mythological character, Orpheus. He was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek mythology. In addition to being known as the best poet in his time, he first appears in major stories focusing on his unique ability to charm all living things, and even stones, with his music. He is perhaps best known today for the story of his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld.
The qualities of the human condition developed in those ancient stories have been retold throughout the history of art. In my work The Other side of the Mirror, I re-appropriated the story of Orpheus in order to describe our current human condition and relationship to nature. My image is built of three major parts: a reflected natural landscape, a frame held up in front of it, and a selfie by astronaut Aki Hoshide. The frame references Jean Cocteau's Orphée, where mirrors are ‘the doors through which Death passes’, potential gateways to another world.
In Entwined Systems, endangered or extinct California animals and plants are superimposed on a surreal landscape on the left side of the mirror. Drawn by Orpheus, the creatures pass through the threshold of death where they exist on the right side as memories. Reciprocally, images depicting the genetic code of SARS and Covid19 travel through the portal into the world of the living. The mirror or portal between worlds shows the reflection of an innocent child viewing itself in the mirror. The reverse side of the body of the astronaut is composed of images from the Los Angeles Aqueduct which conveys the waters from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.
Image references in ’The Other side of the Mirror’:
Painting: Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus (1900) by John William Waterhouse
Still image of Orpheus, Jean Marais, waking next to mirror, Film: Orphée 1950 by Jean Cocteau’s
Orpheus, by Franz von Stuck, 1891
The qualities of the human condition developed in those ancient stories have been retold throughout the history of art. In my work The Other side of the Mirror, I re-appropriated the story of Orpheus in order to describe our current human condition and relationship to nature. My image is built of three major parts: a reflected natural landscape, a frame held up in front of it, and a selfie by astronaut Aki Hoshide. The frame references Jean Cocteau's Orphée, where mirrors are ‘the doors through which Death passes’, potential gateways to another world.
In Entwined Systems, endangered or extinct California animals and plants are superimposed on a surreal landscape on the left side of the mirror. Drawn by Orpheus, the creatures pass through the threshold of death where they exist on the right side as memories. Reciprocally, images depicting the genetic code of SARS and Covid19 travel through the portal into the world of the living. The mirror or portal between worlds shows the reflection of an innocent child viewing itself in the mirror. The reverse side of the body of the astronaut is composed of images from the Los Angeles Aqueduct which conveys the waters from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.
Image references in ’The Other side of the Mirror’:
Painting: Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus (1900) by John William Waterhouse
Still image of Orpheus, Jean Marais, waking next to mirror, Film: Orphée 1950 by Jean Cocteau’s
Orpheus, by Franz von Stuck, 1891
The Paragone Series
by Coleman Griffith
Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, Front Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, Back
Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, Front Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, Back
Both Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino and Déjà vu are part of my 2 sided art series called Paragone, 2019. The Italian word paragone translates to mean ‘comparison’. Initially the term came about during the Renaissance and most commonly referred to ‘debate about the relative merits of painting and sculpture’.
Leonardo’s writings about the superiority of painting over poetry and music (and sculpture) are the first important Renaissance contribution to the debate.
An example of this debate in art can be seen in ‘David et Goliath’, (1509-1566), a two sided painting by Daniele da Volterra. Made as part of his polemical stand on the larger conceptual paragone debate which championed the supremacy painting over sculpture. In these two separate paintings one can experience and view the same composition from two different angles. These paintings begin to transgress the border that divides three-dimensional sculpture and two-dimensional paintings.
Leonardo’s writings about the superiority of painting over poetry and music (and sculpture) are the first important Renaissance contribution to the debate.
An example of this debate in art can be seen in ‘David et Goliath’, (1509-1566), a two sided painting by Daniele da Volterra. Made as part of his polemical stand on the larger conceptual paragone debate which championed the supremacy painting over sculpture. In these two separate paintings one can experience and view the same composition from two different angles. These paintings begin to transgress the border that divides three-dimensional sculpture and two-dimensional paintings.
David et Goliath front side David et Goliath back side
by Daniele da Volterra , (1509-1566)
by Daniele da Volterra , (1509-1566)
Ginevra de’ Benci Wreath of Laurel
by Leonardo da Vinci, 1474-8
by Leonardo da Vinci, 1474-8
Another reference I find interesting is the two sided painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de’ Benci, being the front painting and Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper, being the back painting. In these
paintings Leonardo depicts dual languages to convey the virtuous qualities of 16 year old , Ginevra de’ Benci. Her beauty is delicately presented to the viewer through her flawless painted chalk-white skin, porcelain-fine features, and impenetrably reserved expression. The second portrait appears on the backside, “Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper” and offers another very personal and symbolically coded portrait. It features juniper, ginepro in Italian, a cognate of Ginevra’s name and symbolic reference of her chastity. The palm frawn stands for her moral virtue and the laurel indicates artistic and literary tendencies. The scrolling motto which encircles all three elements translates to “Beauty adorns virtue.” Leonardo’s two sides provide us with the whole picture.
My Paragone Proposition:
There are indeed at least two sides to everything and this is explored in his series, that seeks to challenge the artworlds established categorizations of the arts and blurs it’s boundaries. There’s always another side to the conversation, the B-side, the back of the canvas, or the other side of the print. Like Leonardo, I strive to present at least two complementary compositions that provide us, the viewers with the whole picture.
paintings Leonardo depicts dual languages to convey the virtuous qualities of 16 year old , Ginevra de’ Benci. Her beauty is delicately presented to the viewer through her flawless painted chalk-white skin, porcelain-fine features, and impenetrably reserved expression. The second portrait appears on the backside, “Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper” and offers another very personal and symbolically coded portrait. It features juniper, ginepro in Italian, a cognate of Ginevra’s name and symbolic reference of her chastity. The palm frawn stands for her moral virtue and the laurel indicates artistic and literary tendencies. The scrolling motto which encircles all three elements translates to “Beauty adorns virtue.” Leonardo’s two sides provide us with the whole picture.
My Paragone Proposition:
There are indeed at least two sides to everything and this is explored in his series, that seeks to challenge the artworlds established categorizations of the arts and blurs it’s boundaries. There’s always another side to the conversation, the B-side, the back of the canvas, or the other side of the print. Like Leonardo, I strive to present at least two complementary compositions that provide us, the viewers with the whole picture.
Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino
Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, Coleman Griffith, 2018-19 and Lot and his Daughters, Guercino, 1617
My work abstractly explores the tumultuous, contradictory and ambiguous nature of Guercino’s painting. Beginning with a single architectural element, I repurpose it’s meaning through replication, scalar transformation and manipulation of form through interactions between layers of color and light.
The digital collage/paintings are influenced by many sources including both the past and present. In Lot and his Daughters, After Guercino, I explore the morally complex, ambiguous and controversial interpretations of the Old Testament story of Lot and his daughters. I do this through the filter of Guercino’s painting showing the three principal characters in the foreground, on a hillside above the notoriously immoral city of Sodom, burning in the background. The three characters form an asymmetrical vortex where Lot is shown guzzling a large goblet of wine with his youngest daughter who reaches up towards his hand and his eldest daughter clasping a jug of wine.
There are several Rabbinical interpretations of the story the first was his daughters were inducing their father to drink wine and become drunk in order to sleep with him and bear his children. Another counter Rabbinic view was that Lot secretly lusted after his daughters. ‘He was intoxicated when the elder sister lay with him, but he was sober when she rose, as is indicated in the Torah by the dot over the word u-ve-komah (“when she rose”). Despite his knowledge of what had transpired, he did not refrain from drinking wine the next night as well, and lying with his younger daughter (Gen. Rabbah 51:8–9’) Guercino’s painting appears to take an ambiguous stance as to who is initiating and perpetuating this act of incest.
I am interested in using this Rashomon effect in my abstract composition, where the viewer is left without conclusion or static harmony. Using dynamic visual and passionate counterpoints. all the contradictory interpretations about the same event are given in my contemporary interpretation of this biblical parable.
Writings About Other Artists Work
"Light Patterns #10"Acrylic on Canvas, 48" x 36"
"Kerrie Smith's Light Patterns paintings capture the rapturous relationships of time, light and nature. Her Light Patterns series reference this dynamic relationship primarily though her juxtaposition of dense color layers within an abstract geometric compositional structure. The color layers composed of meticulously organized dots form cloud like patterns of light, which flow through and across the geometric boundaries of the surface. Smith’s Light Patterns are a idiomatic language she has created to communicate to us the ephemeral interplay of light and the tangible structure of the physical world. Her richly textured patterns of color simultaneously define and erode the geometric boundaries within the paintings."
- Coleman Griffith is an Artist, Architect and architectural educator who lives and practices in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara