THAT WHICH LIES BEYOND WHAT IS KNOWN
ESSAY FOR CABLE GRIFFITH’S SOLO EXHIBITION, WE FolloweD the trAIL UNtil WE DISAPPEAReD, AT LINDA HODGES GALLERY, SEATTLE, OCTOBER 2022
Cable Griffith, We followed the trail until we disappeared, 2022, fabric dye and acrylic on canvas, 47 x 90.5 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
Pacific Northwest artist Cable Griffith is painting lush, verdant worlds. Weaving together futurist scenes and recollected memories to create wondrous landscapes, his solo exhibition, We followed the trail until we disappeared, provides ample exploration of these stories beyond time. The bridge was wet with mist and moss, depicts what appears to be a glittering mercurial waterfall pouring down from the mountain, through trees into a rocky pool. For a moment we just looked reveals an evergreen forest creeping up the side of a mountain, blanketing the shoulders of a peak crowned by clouds. The night gave way to day appears as a tangled thicket of brambles through which we perceive other layers, unsettling our assuredness of where or what this place might be.
Each of these paintings embody a respect and reverence for what we might call wilderness, or nature; descriptors that suggest a separation of humans from such environments, as places we go to rather than live in or live amongst. But these paintings represent vibrant habitats that inherently soothe, rejuvenate, and restore us because what is wild or nature is a part of us; and we a part of it. In the 21st century, many of us are beginning to remember that humans, trees, bodies of water, and mountains are interlocking parts of a whole—inseparable, interdependent, and capable of reciprocal and rewarding relationships. In describing these interconnectivities, Cable is guiding us through this recognition to shift away from imagined utopias toward concrete visions of humanity’s relationship with nature via examples of his own. For We followed the trail until we disappeared, he reconsiders the scale of utopia as something both greater than us, and closer, thus turning his attention toward more personal, intimate visions of a speculative journey across these lands.
Each of these paintings embody a respect and reverence for what we might call wilderness, or nature; descriptors that suggest a separation of humans from such environments, as places we go to rather than live in or live amongst. But these paintings represent vibrant habitats that inherently soothe, rejuvenate, and restore us because what is wild or nature is a part of us; and we a part of it. In the 21st century, many of us are beginning to remember that humans, trees, bodies of water, and mountains are interlocking parts of a whole—inseparable, interdependent, and capable of reciprocal and rewarding relationships. In describing these interconnectivities, Cable is guiding us through this recognition to shift away from imagined utopias toward concrete visions of humanity’s relationship with nature via examples of his own. For We followed the trail until we disappeared, he reconsiders the scale of utopia as something both greater than us, and closer, thus turning his attention toward more personal, intimate visions of a speculative journey across these lands.
Cable Griffith, The bridge was wet with mist and moss, 2021, fabric dye and acrylic on canvas, 57 x 54.5 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
Cable Griffith, The night gave way to day, 2022, photogram, fabric dye, and acrylic on canvas, 29 x 38.5 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
MAPS
The history of painting overflows with references to mythology, folklore, and history; but contemporary authors often create stories that have different ways of addressing the future. As speculative fictions, they may entirely reimagine the past to change the direction of a currently projected outcome. Or they may use historical facts to inscribe a completely different present era than the one we’re in, changing the trajectory of our path. Cable’s speculative worldbuilding is different from either of these. His storytelling incorporates memory and composite images, a mixture of both truth and fiction that creates a realm of personal mythology. These realms are where he has been, as much as they are places he has yet to be. As both a record and a projection of his journeys, his paintings present a kind of layered cartography that allows us to see this world from multiple vantage points: above and below, outside and within, known and unknown.
These paintings-as-maps form a conceptual space where we find the lands we thought we knew are more complex and vast than we imagined, and at times, unfamiliar. A map tests the known edges. A map reminds us there are parts of the world we may not have seen, but we’re aware exists. Hic sunt leones—here, there are lions. But what lies within the frame inevitably suggests something exists beyond it that we’ve never before considered, what is truly unknown. Hic sunt dracones—here, there are dragons. A painting has an edge with the same implications, but seeks to resolve this to some degree. A painting, like a map, guides us to look for something in a specific area of focus, perhaps without even knowing what it is. So as we traverse the guided territory, to experience a moment of otherworldliness, the mundane becomes an extraordinary experience of that which is much bigger than us, profound and terrifying. But it’s the point of view that makes the difference. Cable’s perspective offers a closeness that suggests when we turn away from the forest in the painting, we’ll be in the same forest looking across to the other side. Here lies a slippage off the map; a liberation from its architecture.
These paintings-as-maps form a conceptual space where we find the lands we thought we knew are more complex and vast than we imagined, and at times, unfamiliar. A map tests the known edges. A map reminds us there are parts of the world we may not have seen, but we’re aware exists. Hic sunt leones—here, there are lions. But what lies within the frame inevitably suggests something exists beyond it that we’ve never before considered, what is truly unknown. Hic sunt dracones—here, there are dragons. A painting has an edge with the same implications, but seeks to resolve this to some degree. A painting, like a map, guides us to look for something in a specific area of focus, perhaps without even knowing what it is. So as we traverse the guided territory, to experience a moment of otherworldliness, the mundane becomes an extraordinary experience of that which is much bigger than us, profound and terrifying. But it’s the point of view that makes the difference. Cable’s perspective offers a closeness that suggests when we turn away from the forest in the painting, we’ll be in the same forest looking across to the other side. Here lies a slippage off the map; a liberation from its architecture.
MATERIAL
At a certain point, Cable abandons the armature to amplify the looseness and imperfections of the material itself. Cable’s works on unstretched fabric are expressive, open, immediate, and present. You can feel how they’re more of a body in relationship to their collaboration with the human hand. While traditional paintings begin with an imprimatura, Cable often dyes material by hand to create a loose grid of monochrome color blocks, which then construct a varied and unpredictable ground. The dyed pieces are a way to acknowledge the presence of a before, and the negotiation of sometimes unpredictable processes. They are handled, dyed, folded, tended to, and given attention as something that isn’t neutral but that has its own life. Of course this is about labor, time, waiting, and uncertainty. And it’s about contending with an unprecious material that could be used for anything such as clothing, blankets, shelter, adornment, or a wall hanging; and even a map. But until it goes onto the wall to be declared art, the work has an indeterminacy of purpose that allows for it to be anything, which in turn, becomes part of the story.
It’s Cable’s rich use of color that becomes more traditionally formal, heavy on both the theory and expression. Whether painted over bare canvas or dyed material, each painting’s color foundation begins with a blocked grid. At times the paint is heavily opaque, almost appearing as if used straight out of the tube. At other times, colors have deeply nuanced transparencies. He complicates the palette through his derived algorithms by layering lines, marks, and symbols over the top of each miniature color field, to create a matrix of color-averaging and color-complication. What could quickly become a clinical and scientific process is instead expressive, emotional, and evocative. The effect is like a snapshot of the light at a particular moment such as a bright spring morning, the afternoon heat of a late-summer day, or a cool autumn evening. This subtle portrait of light within each scene is a reflection of our latitude, with its distinct, rapidly changing angles according to season. Each abstracted symbol and glyph stacks itself atop other marks until together they create a dynamic and kaleidoscopic sense of movement. Combined, they form a shimmering, tangled veil through which we may see a distant light, mountain, or individual trees; and through which we may perceive the particular shapes of something, should we step back far enough to see it.
It’s Cable’s rich use of color that becomes more traditionally formal, heavy on both the theory and expression. Whether painted over bare canvas or dyed material, each painting’s color foundation begins with a blocked grid. At times the paint is heavily opaque, almost appearing as if used straight out of the tube. At other times, colors have deeply nuanced transparencies. He complicates the palette through his derived algorithms by layering lines, marks, and symbols over the top of each miniature color field, to create a matrix of color-averaging and color-complication. What could quickly become a clinical and scientific process is instead expressive, emotional, and evocative. The effect is like a snapshot of the light at a particular moment such as a bright spring morning, the afternoon heat of a late-summer day, or a cool autumn evening. This subtle portrait of light within each scene is a reflection of our latitude, with its distinct, rapidly changing angles according to season. Each abstracted symbol and glyph stacks itself atop other marks until together they create a dynamic and kaleidoscopic sense of movement. Combined, they form a shimmering, tangled veil through which we may see a distant light, mountain, or individual trees; and through which we may perceive the particular shapes of something, should we step back far enough to see it.
Cable Griffith, Maury Island, WA, 2015, acrylic on panel, 18 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
MYSTICISM, UToPIA, & FUTURISM
Cable is among many artists in the Pacific Northwest who reference deeply the mysterious nature, if not mysticism, of our enchanted bioregion. There is a presence of the weird—not just the weirdness of the strange or the supernatural, but a weirdness that suggests a bending or turning that changes our perception of reality. This sets a darker undercurrent to his works that are a vital ground to some of their more aerial nature. In a sense, the weird is shaping our view through an unsettled state of the present to divine a strange future.
What is strange or mysterious is deeply felt in Cable’s worlds, but with a reverence and respect that extends beyond mere appreciation, love, or beauty to flirt with the eerie and uncanny. In 2015, his narratives delved into mysterious sightings of airborne or atmospheric phenomena and suggested the presence of inexplicable aircraft--unidentified flying objects. These histories are rooted within the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. One painting, Maury Island, illustrates one of our most famous incidents. Hillsides, a rocky shoreline, and distant mountains cloaked in fog amidst a grey sky seem to be suspended in time. Reflections of the land overlay the glassiness of a still bay, while ripples dance across the water below a hovering crystalline form. This strange figure takes on a mysterious presence, as if shapeshifting or transmitting a message from some unknown origin.
Paranormal events like this excite our collective imagination, leading us to reflect on some of our most unanswerable questions. We wonder where these objects, vessels, and beings come from. What if it's not so much of a where, but a when? What if we entertain the idea that these visitors are us, examining and reshaping history to redetermine our future? This is a speculative fiction with multiple paradoxes. Still, they could inspire us to examine what power we do have to change our futures now, and how our imaginations help in shaping what unfolds.
In his series, Precarious Utopias, Cable has portrayed unfettered vistas of overflowing ecosystems on a wild, overgrown planet. What does utopia mean, exactly, and how does it straddle the line between fantasy and frightening escapism? Perhaps utopia is a first step that allows us to see how futurism demonstrates whatever lies ahead is determined by what we build today, in ways that transform what is yet to come. A past may be written, but the future is in progress and we are redrawing the map as we go—not aspirationally, but in ways that are mutable, changeable, and malleable. Like a map, a painting may illustrate a drive to move forward into new terrain, or familiar terrain in new ways, and resist what has previously been written as inevitable. Where we thought there were dragons, and where we knew there were lions, we found something unexpectedly beautiful upon our arrival. And in this way, a painting can call forth a resistance to the prescription of dystopian lenses.
What is strange or mysterious is deeply felt in Cable’s worlds, but with a reverence and respect that extends beyond mere appreciation, love, or beauty to flirt with the eerie and uncanny. In 2015, his narratives delved into mysterious sightings of airborne or atmospheric phenomena and suggested the presence of inexplicable aircraft--unidentified flying objects. These histories are rooted within the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. One painting, Maury Island, illustrates one of our most famous incidents. Hillsides, a rocky shoreline, and distant mountains cloaked in fog amidst a grey sky seem to be suspended in time. Reflections of the land overlay the glassiness of a still bay, while ripples dance across the water below a hovering crystalline form. This strange figure takes on a mysterious presence, as if shapeshifting or transmitting a message from some unknown origin.
Paranormal events like this excite our collective imagination, leading us to reflect on some of our most unanswerable questions. We wonder where these objects, vessels, and beings come from. What if it's not so much of a where, but a when? What if we entertain the idea that these visitors are us, examining and reshaping history to redetermine our future? This is a speculative fiction with multiple paradoxes. Still, they could inspire us to examine what power we do have to change our futures now, and how our imaginations help in shaping what unfolds.
In his series, Precarious Utopias, Cable has portrayed unfettered vistas of overflowing ecosystems on a wild, overgrown planet. What does utopia mean, exactly, and how does it straddle the line between fantasy and frightening escapism? Perhaps utopia is a first step that allows us to see how futurism demonstrates whatever lies ahead is determined by what we build today, in ways that transform what is yet to come. A past may be written, but the future is in progress and we are redrawing the map as we go—not aspirationally, but in ways that are mutable, changeable, and malleable. Like a map, a painting may illustrate a drive to move forward into new terrain, or familiar terrain in new ways, and resist what has previously been written as inevitable. Where we thought there were dragons, and where we knew there were lions, we found something unexpectedly beautiful upon our arrival. And in this way, a painting can call forth a resistance to the prescription of dystopian lenses.
Cable Griffith, The Precipice, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
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Cable Griffith, Mount Verisimilitude, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery
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WHAT wE HOLD CLOSE
The history of European landscape painting regards nature with a reverence offered up to be devoured, conquered, tamed, and restrained. There is a formula, rooted in a circular composition: the mountain, the valley, the forest and bodies of water, the light, the storm, the distant blue sky. We view this scene from some safe vantage point to see the complete work of nature’s terrible glory. Meanwhile, bearing witness to the spectacle, we remain unaffected. What it does not show is how the land itself changes us.
Cable’s unrestrained, untamed landscapes show us how he has been changed; deeply affected by the damp, northern forests in which blankets of moss cloak the surfaces of all things, and enormous sword ferns carpet the understory. The depth of this impact is described through a sense of understanding the character, topographies, histories, and light; densely populated land formations and bodies of water, flowers, fields, and pointy conifers that echo the shapes of our most famous Douglas firs, Western hemlocks, and Western red cedars. The sky makes an appearance as the ephemeral unknown. Like bodies of water in Cable’s paintings, they represent a gleaming illumination of hope and possibility that doesn’t just rush past us, but leads us to some other place, beyond the map.
These are dynamic futurisms, renderings that place us in movement among these thriving and biodiverse regions lit by sun, and nourished by rains. Streams and rivers pour themselves down through palisades of stone into green mossy beds, run through the woods, and plunge themselves deep underground. While animals, fungi, and bugs aren’t visible forms of wildlife there is a suggestion that they are still there; waiting, watching, and listening. But we’re there with them. There is no distance, no circular formula, nothing to be devoured but instead, an invitation to step into these places, to be affected, to nurture a sense of belonging and community; perhaps even kinship. The severance of humans from nature and wilderness begins to be repaired when we allow ourselves to return to the land; not just in proximity but as a living, participatory part of this thriving, lush, forested future. These paintings are a map to make known what was previously unfamiliar terrain. What we know, we hold close; and what we hold close we hold dear; stepping into the beyond as intimate and beloved friends.
Cable’s unrestrained, untamed landscapes show us how he has been changed; deeply affected by the damp, northern forests in which blankets of moss cloak the surfaces of all things, and enormous sword ferns carpet the understory. The depth of this impact is described through a sense of understanding the character, topographies, histories, and light; densely populated land formations and bodies of water, flowers, fields, and pointy conifers that echo the shapes of our most famous Douglas firs, Western hemlocks, and Western red cedars. The sky makes an appearance as the ephemeral unknown. Like bodies of water in Cable’s paintings, they represent a gleaming illumination of hope and possibility that doesn’t just rush past us, but leads us to some other place, beyond the map.
These are dynamic futurisms, renderings that place us in movement among these thriving and biodiverse regions lit by sun, and nourished by rains. Streams and rivers pour themselves down through palisades of stone into green mossy beds, run through the woods, and plunge themselves deep underground. While animals, fungi, and bugs aren’t visible forms of wildlife there is a suggestion that they are still there; waiting, watching, and listening. But we’re there with them. There is no distance, no circular formula, nothing to be devoured but instead, an invitation to step into these places, to be affected, to nurture a sense of belonging and community; perhaps even kinship. The severance of humans from nature and wilderness begins to be repaired when we allow ourselves to return to the land; not just in proximity but as a living, participatory part of this thriving, lush, forested future. These paintings are a map to make known what was previously unfamiliar terrain. What we know, we hold close; and what we hold close we hold dear; stepping into the beyond as intimate and beloved friends.
Cable Griffith, The walls became the world all around, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 62 inches. Image courtesy of Cable Griffith and J. Rinehart Gallery