studio catherine griffiths

7/7, 14 views, 2023 (installation view) masked acrylic wall paint / photos: Samuel Hartnett

7/7, 14 views is an enlargement of one of seven drawings from Legs alphabet, a construct in seven weights (2014). Each drawing is a typographic set for 26 letters, ten numbers and punctuation, made by Catherine Griffiths, in which the weight of the forms is increased over seven intervals, drawing by drawing. The letters, numbers and punctuation that make up the set become progressively more abstract.

7/7 is the blackest weight in the set, rendering its composition no longer identifiable as letterform. Presented on Te Tuhi’s Project Wall as a large-scale painted work, the mass of forms assumes a fully abstract, almost architectural, quality. As the blackness closes in, 14 slits, slivers, and slots of light—views through are revealed, referencing the exchanges that take place between light and shadow, in stillness and movement. A collector of things, whether object, word play, image or sound, Griffiths brings attention to the details that she is witness to and draws on in her interdisciplinary practice. In discussing 7/7, 14 views with Andrew Kennedy, it’s clear that being immersed in the ngahere at her Karekare studio and home plays back into her work.

7/7, 14 views sits in reference to other works in Griffiths’ practice, including Sound Tracks (Hit the Wall, The Dowse Art Museum, 2012), Collidescape (Te Kei atrium, AraInstitute of Canterbury, Ōtautahi, 2018) and the pattern language of shared ancestry in ‘A whakapapa, two lines of women’ an installation drawing (All Lines Converge, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2016). The visual language of 7/7, 14 views makes reference to W in Black (2017), five weights and styles of a typeface in two algorithmic compositions made in supportof the 2017 Women’s March protesting the inauguration of the US president.

Legs was originally constructed as just 12 letterforms for the title on the cover of Bruce Connew’s artist book Body of Work, and in response to his series of photographs which investigates gender and sexual politics through the lens of horse-breeding.

Te Tuhi

03 other in(ter)ventions

TypeSHED11
an international typography symposium, Wellington, NZ

typ gr ph c
a series of compact workshops, Karekare, NZ

installations, exhibitions

7/7, 14 views
Te Tuhi Project Wall, 2023, Aotearoa NZ

Work/Space
Shanghai Art and Design Exhibition, 2017, CHINA

A whakapapa, two lines of women, an installation drawing
All Lines Converge, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2016, NZ

Installation with mirror and line
transitionalfieldwork, an exhibition, 2016, NZ

only U know ...
collaboration, Lela Jacobs AW17 Auckland, and SS17 Paris collection, NZ + FR

Constructed/Projected
installation, Typojanchi 2015, 4th International Typography Biennale, Seoul, KR

The Tuwhare Poster Project
fund-raiser for the Hone Tuwhare Trust Writers Residency, NZ

memento :: motif
Proyecto de Arte Contemporáneo Alzheimer, Valparaíso, Chile

The Phone Book
a maquette, for the Club de Conversation project

Club de Conversation at S/F with Dino Chai, Auckland, NZ

Club de Conversation: Keyhole Series and Dials
rug series, Dilana Workshop, NZ

Sound Tracks
installation, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, NZ

The Jets
short film, Paris, France

posters, protest, statements

The Best Design Awards
three posters, 2018, NZ

Labour of Love
another word-play poster, 2018, NZ

W in black
drawings in progress, 2017, NZ/FR

The Alphabet
front page takeover of the Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper for 26 days, Fitchburg, USA

The Brexit Series
a word-play poster series in response to Brexit

Raising the Flag
contemplative, suggestive — design unravelled, NZ

Protest Vessel 1/2 PRICE
a collaboration with ceramic artist Raewyn Atkinson, NZ

7/7: 14 views

Te Tuhi, Project Wall, Curated by Andrew Kennedy, 20 August – 22 October 2023

Presented on Te Tuhi’s Project Wall as a large-scale painted work, the mass of forms assumes a fully abstract, almost architectural, quality. As the blackness closes in, 14 slits, slivers, and slots of light—views through are revealed, referencing the exchanges that take place between light and shadow, in stillness and movement.

“In this stunning black Kline-like ‘drawing’ on the central Te Tuhi wall – designed by typographer and artist, Catherine Griffiths — we find a compact, blocklike rectangle of tightly packed, mainly thick vertical vectors, a compressed digital ‘forest’ of abutted descending painted bands derived from expanded letters of the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation marks. The emphasis is on peek-a-boo white slivers and vibrant, angularly intruding (or projecting) triangular edges. Graphically imposing, but not threatening, it rumbles with muscular tremulous energy.” — John Hurrell