Belinda Griffiths’ latest body of work continues her signature use of bold brushstrokes and exploration of the human form.

For Belinda, there is no space for hesitation or doubt in the initial stages of creating her paintings. The paint is applied with a large loaded brush in wide sweeping arcs that twist in on themselves. The brushstrokes are intuitive and spontaneous allowing Belinda to be both active and passive in the creation of the works, letting the pared-back materials be the driving force in the works.

As the painting begins to dry on the surface Belinda wipes back into areas of darkness to reclaim the light needed for a figure or form. Even as the form emerges, traces of the earlier gestural brushstrokes remain. Belinda creates the works in such a way to allow for these traces – “the marks that remain despite all my interruptions and wiping back actually interest me the most. They add a layer of meaning to the work that I couldn’t ever predict nor that I completely understand“

“We need the terrain of the half solved and the half solvable, of the distance between knowing and not knowing, seeing the trace in the ground and being still somewhat uncertain of what it is, of not having a clear label that tells us everything” William Kentridge

Belinda Griffiths is a conceptual figurative artist based in Auckland. Belinda works within the disciplines of painting and printmaking and explores the expressive power of the gestural mark. When coupled with depictions of the human form, this push and pull between mark and form, has the potential to dig deeper and communicate something of the human experience that becomes more authentic, more visceral. Rob Garrett wrote of the sensual power of Griffiths’ work: “a potent sensuality” – “which at times undercuts and almost contradicts the works conceptual origins”

Belinda is a regular art award finalist and was recently awarded a Merit at the (2021) Parkin Drawing Prize, and was the overall winner of the prestigious Molly Morpeth Canaday and won the Estuary Art Award (in 2013). Her work is held in a number of public, private and corporate collections in New Zealand and overseas – including a number of works in the Wallace Arts Trust (Auckland) and the Vernon Public Art Gallery (British Columbia). 

Contact the gallery for a complete exhibition catalogue