Paul Griffin (aka Precious Murphy) is a fascinating chap, he's a 44 year old aspiring/frustrated architect with a fascination for the technically utopian vision of the future paraded across the silver and TV screens of the '60s and '70s. Based in Brighton, and being very much of the arts scene there, until now he's focused primarily on Pop Choc and exhibiting his and other works at all the major art fairs. They were a big hit at the Glasgow Art Fair, having fought against the traditional pomposity of the gallery system, it was a rocking affair representing artists like Dan Baldwin, Ben Allen and Simon Dixon. However the fair was part funded by the council, and seeing as the government have shut down The Arts it's no surprise it had to shut down.
In fact Paul virtually emailed me a brutally frank thesis of his life so far, he'd probably one of the most adaptable guys in the scene right now, he's already part of Brighton's Artists Open House Festival and will be exhibiting his latest limited edition abstract prints in Bristol, London and Singapore later this year. In the meantime you can catch his latest shows here.
"I think you can see the appreciation of Art Deco in my work. The references to Sci Fi and the vision that architects need to have to make a building that creates a massive impact… I also love the way that the future was depicted in Sci Fi movies in the 60's and 70's. Quite a naive vision of the future and then when, as a young adult, I first saw 2001, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Your comments about the final stages of 2001 has told me that you totally get what I am trying to express".
What makes Paul Griffin's work so pertinent is his association with the sci-fi visions of a hope for an impossible future that permeated his childhood, as did mine. The comparison with real life can be unbearable, he raised in Moss Side, I with an poor single mother in London. I truly relate to this guy's existential plight, the beauty of a retro future leaves us with a vague and empty promise of an impossibly utopian vision. A future where everyone will be a spaceman, and if you travel fast enough, you'll see the face of God in the patination of a light speed universe.
Like I say, a fascinating guy. See more of his work and get all the latest at www.PreciousMurphy.com.
