28 July - 25 August 2007
TTOMMORROWW WILL BE DIFFERENT
Matthew Griffin

Opening preview: Friday 27 July 2007, 5.30pm

At The Physics Room, Matthew Griffin, one of Melbourne’s most exciting young artists continues to draw upon pop-cultural myths and legends with a critical edge and wry sense of humour. His installation brings together a selection of sculptural and video works that riff off Norwegian Black Metal’s obsession with death in an ongoing interest with society’s paranoias and taboos around this subject.

One video work features a woman playing music by Burzum, an electronic project by death metal musician Count Grishnackh (produced while in prison for killing fellow musician Euronymous, allegedly motivated by jealousy over the fact that Euronymous had a more evil reputation), while reading accounts of Euronymous’s murder. Another video work has been described by Griffin “a sort of blow up meets Benny Hill photo shoot” loaded with black metal logos. The installation is an exploration into the nature of time, perception, and the prediction of future events, with a melancholic parlour trick twist. Griffin creates a sense of the frozen moments before the fall.

Matthew Griffin completed a Bachelor Fine Arts (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1998. He has held several solo exhibitions including Chinese Democracy, Uplands Gallery, Melbourne; Das Bogus Journey, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne; and Chivalrous Romances, Il Ponte Contemporanea, Rome. Selected group exhibitions include Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; HIGH TIDE: Currents in Contemporary Australian Art, Zakheta National Gallery of Art, Poland; Big in Japan, Gallery Side 2, Tokyo; and Family First, Victorian Collage of the Arts Gallery, Melbourne and The Physics Room, Christchurch. Matthew Griffin is currently a Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Studio Artist and is represented by Uplands Gallery, Melbourne.