Born in Dublin but based in the US, Shane Griffin has collaborated with the likes of Kanye West, Pharell and Le Bron James. He’s holding his first exhibition in Ireland next week.

Shane Griffin is Dublin born and bred, but he now operates out of New York City. Working across a number of formats and disciplines he’s had his hands in sculpture, animation and graphic design.

Establishing himself through his own work, he’s went on to collaborate with iconic artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell and athletes such as Le Bron James.

Shane has exhibited work in New York, Los Angeles, Dublin, and London. In 2018, his art film of the same name ‘Chromatic’ was showcased as part of the TED “age of amazement” conference. And in addition to this, he was named an Art Directors Club – Young Gun in 2013 and PRINT magazines New Visual Artist in 2015.

Shane’s artistic practice is an exploration into both technology and natural phenomena. Although his artworks take on abstract forms, the designs emerge from a place of reality and familiarity. For the exhibition ‘Chromatic’, he delves into the macro work of ‘diffraction grating’. In this process, light beams are split into various wavelengths by an optical component – that expose the light’s structure of colour.

“My work reproduces familiar visual notes to that of light through a prism, bent, and composed into surrealist colourful boxes,” Shane said.

Shane’s work captures this unique process and creatively depicts it to the viewer through his originally designed prints. There are seven wavelength ranges within the light spectrum that are visible to humans, each of which corresponds to a different colour. Within any narrow band of visible light, these various wavelengths can be perceived by the human eye as different colours. This subjective variability allows each viewer to have a unique perspective and  interaction with the work.

Talking about the nature of the work in the exhibition Shane said, “There’s a certain element of controlled chaos with the compositions. In sections, I direct the shape and amount of colour, but for the rest, I let nature do its thing.”