Poor Mitch Griffiths’ muse is dead

This Short Film features Lois Winstone. Paintings include Griffiths’ paintings The Promised Land, Flag Girl, Flag Bearer’s Daughter and Lady of the Isles.

One of Griffiths’ most famous paintings, called The Muse is Dead, takes the classical image of the muse and unsettles any preconceptions the viewer may have of this historic figure. The muse, who is being simultaneously grabbed by two paparazzi and a surgeon, deals with the transient nature of celebrity and the shortening attention span of a society which idolises a person or an object one minute and quickly discards it the next. Griffiths uses a traditional, almost forgotten style of painting, inspired by the light and composition of Old Master paintings, but he uses this style to depict the issues concerning 21st-century British society.

Mitch Griffiths on display at Halcyon Gallery, 24 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London from 28 April – 05 June 2010.