Mary Griffiths (b1965, the Wirral) has long been making drawings of (frequently derelict) industrial sites. A year and a half ago, she was introduced to Astley Green Colliery, a former coalmine in Lancashire, which was closed in 1970 and knocked down but for its winding house and headgear – rare examples of 1908 working-class engineering. Spending time at the site, walking around the surrounding geography, reclaimed by nature with trees, grass and mosses, and talking to the volunteers (the colliery is now a museum), Griffiths filled myriad A6 sketchpads with figurative drawings, focusing on aspects that intrigued her, from details of the machinery to a visiting colony of pigeons.
Mary Griffiths, Circuit Gate, 2018. Inscribed graphite on gesso on plywood, 21 x 1.8 x 29.7. Photo courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery.
From these drawings, she then extrapolated her larger abstract works, made on plywood, with layers of acrylic gesso, and even more layers of graphite, pushed into the board and burnished, before being cut into with an etching needle. Using thousands of straight lines, placed at minutely different angles, she creates an oscillating effect reminiscent of the surface geography of the region. One work, Wild Honey, for example, represents the seams of the coalmine, the waterways and the main roads. Griffiths sees her work as “an identification of the remarkable work that was done in industrial areas” across the country, and it is important to her to capture something of the “gravity and splendour” of the working-class engineering.
.jpg)
Mary Griffiths, Sweet Briar (Yates & Thom Ltd), 2018. Inscribed graphite on gesso on plywood, 49 x 2.5 x 69 cm. Photo courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery.
Protest and Remembrance
Miriam de Búrca | Joy Gerrard | Mary Griffiths | Barbara Walker
Alan Cristea Gallery, London
28 February – 30 March 2019
Interview by ANNA McNAY
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY
Click on the pictures below to enlarge
-Miss-Virginia-Pattle-(1826-1910),-1849-1850-Eastnor-Castle-Collection-300.jpg)
Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters
Seven sisters made their mark on Victorian art and culture and deserve to be far more than just dist...
Anindita Dutta: The Shadows of Duality
Shifting from her usual clay to recycled shoes, animal hides, fur, fabrics and more, Anindita Dutta ...
Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde
This milestone exhibition celebrates the pioneering art dealer Berthe Weill, who launched the career...
-750-300.jpg)
Artes Visuales: The Latin American Avant-Garde in Print
Focusing on the influential Artes Visuales magazine and the extraordinary experimental artists it fe...
Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊, •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~•
This is a theatrical space like no other in which, using sculpture, sound, textiles and performance,...
Celebrating the photographic work of Lee Miller in grand style, this retrospective showcases her man...
Now in her 70s, and with a show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Cecilia Vicuña’s act...
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Wilding
This posthumous exhibition of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s art includes work made right up to her de...
-2024-300.jpg)
Ayoung Kim: Delivery Dancer Codex
A trilogy of video works featuring two queer, female delivery drivers in Seoul, Ayoung Kim’s Deliv...
The Tate’s landmark exhibition presents a fascinating story, but could have done more to capture t...
-300.jpg)
Known as a gallerist to the likes of Rauschenberg and Rothko, Betty Parsons spent her weekends makin...
In a powerful new show of painting, sculpture and film, the artist brings folkloric traditions and m...
Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders
The two men from working-class Scottish backgrounds met at art school and became inseparable. This e...
Push the Limits: Culture Strips to Reveal War
A diverse group of works in this exhibition at Fondazione Merz show how contemporary art responds to...
Artes Mundi 11 Prize and Exhibition
Against a background of divisive global politics and hysteria around migration, the six artists shor...
At Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Anawana Haloba has staged an “experimental opera”, as she terms this...
Jumana Emil Abboud – interview
Drawing on folklore, mythmaking and storytelling, Jumana Emil Abboud articulates the strains placed ...
Rhiannon Hiles, chief executive, Beamish Museum – interview
Winner of the world’s largest museum prize, the £120,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year, Beamish, an...
Whether depicting women at work, children playing on the beach or locals at prayer Anna Ancher’s l...
Wright of Derby: From the Shadows
The National Gallery reunifies Joseph Wright of Derby’s trio of candlelit masterpieces, while reve...
-Fergus-Carmichael-300.jpg)
Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life
A luscious selection of sweets, cakes and pies seduce us at this, American painter Wayne Thiebaud’...
A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle
This visually thrilling exhibition is a revelation. Pivoting around Mrinalini Mukherjee, it also cel...
-2025-300.jpg)
Following in the female surrealist tradition, Holly Stevenson makes cathectic objects from clay, whi...
Vision and Illusion: Architectural Photographs by Hélène Binet
A research project by the University of Oxford into Jewish country houses, tracing their history and...
-by-Lucy-Raven,-Installation-View,-The-Curve-300.jpg)
American artist Lucy Raven’s eloquent new film tracks a remarkable undoing, as the dammed Klamath ...
Grace Ndiritu: Compassionate Rebels in Action. Sit-in #5
This show is about taking inspiration from alternative practices and sharing and defining what knowl...
-Above-Ground-Studio-(Matt-Greenwood)-16-300.jpg)
Candice Lin’s cardboard labyrinth is at once playful and sinister, conveying the relentless drip-f...
-16-300.jpg)
The pioneering interdisciplinary artist takes us on a tour around Prophetic Dreaming, Suzanne Treist...
Gilbert & George: 21st Century Pictures
The provocative pair turn the Hayward Gallery into a carnival of misrule...
_2025_Libby-Heaney_Photo-Max-Colson-2-300.jpg)
Shadowscapes: Heaney, JMW Turner and Quantum
Spilling over floors, walls and balconies, as well as in framed works on walls, artist Libby Heaney...
Copyright © 1893–2025 Studio International Foundation.
The title Studio International is the property of the Studio International Foundation and, together with the content, are bound by copyright. All rights reserved.
 |
 |
 |
|---|
Beth Fisher: Grisaille Legacy
Artists’ Laboratory 02: Stephen Farthing RA – interview
ARC: I Draw for You
The 43 Uses of Drawing
Book review: One Thousand Drawings by Tracey Emin