A ship that will never sail – and yet it invites us on a journey. Brian Griffiths' Beneath the Stride of Giants is a monumental vessel, built from Victorian wardrobes and pieces of furniture that once filled rooms, preserved memories, and concealed stories. Now they are part of a vehicle that needs neither waves nor wind to transport us to other worlds. Like the ark, symbolizing hope and new beginnings, like the ship that Peter Pan travels to Neverland, like the wardrobe portal to Narnia, or the rabbit hole that leads Alice to Wonderland – Griffiths' work evokes the great tales of childhood that oscillate between reality and fantasy. Yet the ship remains in place, anchored in a museum on a hill.
Here, high above the world, the work appears like a homage to the restless, the intrepid, who dream of something greater. It's reminiscent of Fitzcarraldo, who towed his steamship over a mountain, obsessed with the idea of making the impossible possible. Griffiths' ship also embodies this spirit: it rejects function, yet not imagination. It invites us to join him in our thoughts, to where myths are born, where the real and the fantastical meet, where a journey can begin without a single wave breaking.
About the artist:
Inspired by the theatricality of representations of past and future in popular culture and science fiction, Brian Griffiths (*1968) transforms found and technically simple materials into fantastical new objects.
Although Griffiths' works are carefully crafted, he makes no secret of the nature of his materials. The deliberate lack of surface and the ambiguous nature of his constructions allow space to imagine what exactly they might be and the journeys they might take you on.
Since graduating with an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 1996, Griffiths has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. He lives and works in London. Beneath the Stride of Giants was originally created for a solo exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre in 2004.
