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Bio
Groff has additionally been the owner and editor of the Painting Perceptions website (paintingperceptions.com) for the past 16 years and has interviewed many prominent contemporary representational painters around the world as well as many emerging artists nationally. This site also features videos, reviews, opinion essays, and more by contributing writers.
Artist Statement
Drawing inspiration from the patterned spaces of Vuillard, the nuanced color harmony and spaces in Indian miniatures, and the fractured grids of Paul Klee, my work is informed by a rich visual vocabulary taken from many points in art history. I employ an intuitive process—gestures, accidents, and erasures coalesce into form and meaning that echoes the sensibilities of Mark Tobey’s “write-writing” or Gregory Gillespie’s “rorschaching” approach. The freedom of this gestural activity can often suggest new compositional possibilities and surprises that transcend expected illusionistic elements. This synthesis of disparate influences—from Bruegel to Poussin, from Mexican folk art to Roman Antiquity; whatever art source might best follow my imagination and the needs of the painting.
I try to resist singular interpretations of the work and instead offers a number of pathways to visual poetics, inviting the viewer to construct their own meaning. In a world overwhelmed by turmoil, my art aims to be a visual sanctuary of solace and wonder.