Artist Statement
Michela Griffith is known for her abstract images celebrating the beauty and diversity of water in motion, and its ever changing interaction with light, land and season. This ‘Liquid Light’ also inspires her to explore movement in and through the landscape. By working locally and through experimentation she has developed a clear vision and a distinctive style.
Freed from the land that bounds it, water has a life of its own, an ever changing interaction with light, land and season. There is an obvious beauty to be found but we tend to underestimate how this changes with time and how important movement is to our experience of the landscape. The images that you see are created in camera and not at a computer: longer exposures and subject movement result in works that are frequently mistaken for paintings. I print all but the largest images myself onto fine art paper which emphasises their painterly quality.
My dialogue with the River Dove started in 2012 and continues today. Photographing water changed the way that I view my camera - rather than being a box that records the landscape, it is a tool that lends itself to creative interpretations - only our imagination and our tendency to adhere to precedent limit us. I’ve moved away from what many people expect photographs to be. Rather than being a straight record, my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. The river has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
Since 2014 Michela's images have featured in solo exhibitions at The Joe Cornish Galleries, Northallerton (twice); Buxton Museum and Art Gallery; The Peak Photographic Gallery, Bakewell; and in a joint exhibition at Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek. Her work has been exhibited widely, including as part of Lichfield Festival Visual Arts Exhibition 2014; The Chatsworth Festival Art Out Loud 2016; Derbyshire Open Arts; Buxton Art Trail; and in group shows at Brighton Photo Fringe in 2017 and 2018.
Michela is represented by the Longitude Gallery, Clitheroe, and Cromford Studio and Gallery. She is a member of Peak District Artisans and a contributor to On Landscape magazine.
Limited Edition photographic prints and open edition prints / cards are available from the above galleries and directly from Michela. See her website for forthcoming exhibitions and events which locally include Derbyshire Open Arts on 25-27 May at Providence Church, New Mills, and Peak District Artisans’ Great Dome Art Fair at the Devonshire Dome, Buxton, on 19-21 July 2019.
