The video tableaux were originally made as a shortcut to the collage-based manipulation of composite imagery to develop compositions for oil paintings. Collage has been at the core of Griswold’s process since the beginning, with an emphasis on the juxtaposition of physical objects with either an outdoor setting, a miniature model or diorama space, and even the cutting up and stitching together of faithful copies of baroque oil paintings on canvas.

Cutting up and manipulating iconic pieces of Old Masters, often from auction catalogs, eventually led to magnet paintings on steel sheet, where the iconographical cut-out components could be rearranged on the oil-on-tin background.

The advent of the iPhone, with its cadre of apps devoted to manipulating still images and videos, allowed the leap to spontaneous digital collage. Griswold maintains the link to physical objects and spaces in developing his compositions by way of performance captures, and manipulation of artifacts in front of oil paintings, both his own and those in his collection.

Selected drawings and paintings by John Griswold.

Complex pictorial, symbolic imagery in the manner of emblem books from 16th and 17th century Europe. The classical Greco-Roman mythological references common to Griswold’s works persist in many of the titles, but the complex imagery confounds as much as it illuminates. This tension allows subconscious, surreal interpretations to resonate.

A recurring inspiration throughout Griswold’s work is the Dance of Death, or la Danse Macabre, populated with lively skeletons. This medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death is often simply a launching point for complex layers of implied meaning.

Obscure rites and mysteries centering on cult figures such as Orpheus, Dionysus, Persephone, Aphrodite, and others recur in Griswold’s works. Fixation with the afterlife and the underworld permeated ancient Greek thought, producing some of the most perplexing imagery. Evoking this complexity without revealing the point where subconscious association departs from art historical and classical references frees the viewer to vicariously participate in the mind altering proceedings.

Epic Homeric poetry and stories of the trials and transformations of Greek heroes provide rich fodder for classical surrealism, often in its darkest form.

Medea, Circe and Hecate appear frequently in Griswoldian imagery, embedded deeply within epic tragedies and tales of redemption and purification. The hallucinatory, vibratory nature of the short video loops provides the perfect vehicle for inducing the sort of trance that suspends reason and opens doors to enlightenment.

The monsters depicted are celebrated mostly in vulnerable states, recalling their innocence, vulnerability or hubris at the hands of a merciless titan, god or goddess.

Contradictory aspects of the prime movers of the universe, and their inscrutable characters and often reckless natures both ground and explode layers of symbolical and allegorical imagery. Primal associations inevitably dominate.

Et in Arcadio ego, sacred precincts, chthonic sites, eponymic origin sites, visions, apparitions and hallucinations imposed on mundane vistas.