Face Value

Overview

Fleeting relationships, encounters, sightings. Making brutal and instant generalisations on society under the pervasive guise of our personal perspectives.

Living, working and travelling around Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Morocco, London, New York, Vancouver, Denver, Barcelona, Rotorua, Stockholm, Croatia and Auckland, Ken Griffen has become quite the nomadic artist. His exhibition, Face Value, is a reflection of the short-lived relationships he's had over the years with strangers - disembodied eyes, hands and faces serving as quick-fire synecdoches of those people. "I see something or someone that moves me, I then draw it in my diary as a life drawing on the spot. When I feel like it, I sit down in my studio, I pull out what is in my head that certain day — what is influencing me, and I open my diary and draw inspiration from those recorded moments in time. That is how my art comes to life. I am constantly drawing in a sketchbook".

A K' Road native, Griffen's main muses are those who are unusual, interesting. “I mostly got inspired by people on trains – people with interesting faces, drunks mostly… They would come up to me and talk to me while I sat and sketched them.”

Read our full interview with the artist here.