Building Pacific Northwest scenes with pixelated paint

In this new episode of Art by Northwest, we head to Burien, Washington, to visit Cable Griffith, an artist and art professor at Seattle University whose vivid paintings merge expressive color with observational detail and mysterious markings. 

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Equally influenced by parenthood and the Northwest environment, Griffith uses dyed-canvas grids, family photos, paint and VR goggles to build layered compositions that reflect both domestic and wild landscapes. (Stream the episode now, or watch the broadcast premiere on Cascade PBS, tonight at 8:50 p.m.)

Having grown up playing video games (and continuing the pastime with his son Forest) Griffith has long been fascinated by how computer pixels are used to form humanoid worlds. In his home studio, Griffith translates this technology into analog materials — creating a potent blend of the digital and domestic realms.

First, he covers the duck-cotton canvas with a matrix of lines, a sort of rebar on which he can hang the more fantastical elements of his work. He does so using a process similar to tie-dyeing, folding the canvas tightly, then dipping it into a dye bath. Unfolding the fabric always reveals surprises — unexpected spots where the color bled or disappeared. Griffith finds joy in this unevenness, in the way the dye resists and rejects the rigidity of the grid. “I like all the wonkiness,” he says.

The next step involves selecting family photos from local wilderness trips and backyard hang outs, then digitally pixelating them to render the images familiar yet fuzzy, like a long-ago memory. Once pixelated, Griffith copies the images square-by-square onto the canvas grid, creating an underpainting. 

After copying his abstracted photo onto the canvas grid, Griffith adds an invented symbology — ovals and arches that he says hold more mystery than literal meaning. These marks draw the viewer closer, as if to solve a puzzle. In some works, we seem to have dropped into a cartoonish video game, in others, like “We followed the trail until it disappeared,” we’re deep inside dark woods, surrounded by eerie possibilities. With lush color set in squares, some pieces look like glass mosaics, some like soft quilts.

The Pacific Northwest landscape appears in much of Griffith’s work in deep-green forested scenes. The fantastical, eerie aspect he noticed upon first arriving here from New York state in 2000 shows up in neon blobs and curious shapes that resemble alien flora.

Recently Griffith has begun adding another layer to his work, facilitated by a VR headset. An extension of his interest in video games, the headset allows him to paint directly on the canvas, while simultaneously seeing one of his digital photographs in the goggles. With this augmented-reality tool, he amps up the surreal quality of the scene, adding subtle visual suggestions from the original photo hidden like Easter eggs.

“If I feel tuned enough into it and can create something where I get lost in it,” Griffith says, “my hope is that others can do that as well.”

You can check out one of Griffith’s paintings in person — “Head (Map),” which looks like both a TV on the fritz and a forest maze — in the group show As Seen In… at J. Rinehart Gallery in Pioneer Square (through Sept. 23).