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GRIFFEN, Peter

Peter Griffen (b. 1948, Henley Beach, Adelaide) paints the Australian interior as memory rather than record. Ranges, waterways, tree lines and ochre earth stay recognisable in his work, then dissolve into fields of colour and gesture, then reassemble into something closer to what a place leaves behind than to what it looks like. He works across oil, acrylic, gouache and watercolour, moving between them as a way of testing the same idea from different angles.

His method is a deliberate loss of control:

“I believe that to make discoveries risks must be taken, the traveller must get lost. A well planned journey can only lead to an already known destination. At some stage the painting must go out of control. From chaos the universe was formed. The artist enters chaos and by taking control, synthesising and simplifying, new images are discovered — images that are potent and speak from the past.”

The traveller who must get lost is not an idle metaphor. Griffen’s long-running Looking for Ludwig Leichhardt series takes the explorer’s doomed inland expeditions as its subject, reimagined as much through wash and colour as through terrain. The paintings treat the emerging image as ancient rather than invented — something uncovered rather than made.

Exhibitions and collections

Painting since the early 1970s, Griffen has held more than fifty solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas, including Paris, London, Lyon and St Tropez. He has been a finalist in the Sulman, Blake, Dobell and Fleurieu prizes, and won the Muswellbrook Art Prize in 2011. His work is held in the Macquarie University collection, NSW Treasury Corporation, and the regional galleries of Orange, Coffs Harbour and New England. His book In and Out of Abstraction sets out the philosophy behind the work in his own words.

Peter Griffen paintings available at SOHO

Three bodies of work are currently represented in the gallery:

  • The horse paintings — Rider 2 (200×100cm), Golf Course Horse, The Red Beast Walks and Looking Back (each 94×94cm). The horse recurs as a form to be broken apart and rebuilt rather than illustrated.
  • Landscape — Living in the Kimberley (183×137cm), Above the Coast and The Winding White Road (each 40×40cm). Country reduced to its structural essentials: ridge, road, coastline.
  • Interior and still life — Still Life Red Desk Lamp (95×130cm) and On the Verandah (90×125cm), domestic subjects given the same treatment as the country.

Collecting Peter Griffen

Works range from $580 for a 40×40cm study to $17,500 for Rider 2 at 200×100cm, with the 94×94cm horse paintings at $5,500. The larger canvases suit commercial interiors and double-height residential spaces; the smaller studies are an accessible entry point to a painter with a fifty-year exhibition history. Every work is an original, one of one, and can be viewed at the SOHO Galleries showroom in Woollahra, Sydney.

Peter Griffen’s name is often searched as “Peter Griffin” — both spellings refer to the same Australian painter.

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GRIFFEN, Peter

Peter Griffen (b. 1948, Henley Beach, Adelaide) paints the Australian interior as memory rather than record. Ranges, waterways, tree lines and ochre earth stay recognisable in his work, then dissolve into fields of colour and gesture, then reassemble into something closer to what a place leaves behind than to what it looks like. He works across oil, acrylic, gouache and watercolour, moving between them as a way of testing the same idea from different angles.

His method is a deliberate loss of control:

"I believe that to make discoveries risks must be taken, the traveller must get lost. A well planned journey can only lead to an already known destination. At some stage the painting must go out of control. From chaos the universe was formed. The artist enters chaos and by taking control, synthesising and simplifying, new images are discovered — images that are potent and speak from the past."

The traveller who must get lost is not an idle metaphor. Griffen's long-running Looking for Ludwig Leichhardt series takes the explorer's doomed inland expeditions as its subject, reimagined as much through wash and colour as through terrain. The paintings treat the emerging image as ancient rather than invented — something uncovered rather than made.

Exhibitions and collections

Painting since the early 1970s, Griffen has held more than fifty solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas, including Paris, London, Lyon and St Tropez. He has been a finalist in the Sulman, Blake, Dobell and Fleurieu prizes, and won the Muswellbrook Art Prize in 2011. His work is held in the Macquarie University collection, NSW Treasury Corporation, and the regional galleries of Orange, Coffs Harbour and New England. His book In and Out of Abstraction sets out the philosophy behind the work in his own words.

Peter Griffen paintings available at SOHO

Three bodies of work are currently represented in the gallery:

  • The horse paintings — Rider 2 (200×100cm), Golf Course Horse, The Red Beast Walks and Looking Back (each 94×94cm). The horse recurs as a form to be broken apart and rebuilt rather than illustrated.
  • Landscape — Living in the Kimberley (183×137cm), Above the Coast and The Winding White Road (each 40×40cm). Country reduced to its structural essentials: ridge, road, coastline.
  • Interior and still life — Still Life Red Desk Lamp (95×130cm) and On the Verandah (90×125cm), domestic subjects given the same treatment as the country.

Collecting Peter Griffen

Works range from $580 for a 40×40cm study to $17,500 for Rider 2 at 200×100cm, with the 94×94cm horse paintings at $5,500. The larger canvases suit commercial interiors and double-height residential spaces; the smaller studies are an accessible entry point to a painter with a fifty-year exhibition history. Every work is an original, one of one, and can be viewed at the SOHO Galleries showroom in Woollahra, Sydney.

Peter Griffen's name is often searched as "Peter Griffin" — both spellings refer to the same Australian painter.