LONDON.- Enduring Freedom is a major new solo exhibition by celebrated British artist, Mitch Griffiths. On view at Halcyon Gallery, the body of work, which was unveiled to an invited audience on Remembrance Day, alludes to a sense of disillusionment and abandon typical of many post-war twentieth-century paintings.

Enduring Freedom’s majestic triptych: First Person Shooter draws upon the titles of the popular video-game franchise Call of Duty, referencing the series across three 150 x 120cm paintings: Finest Hour, Call of Duty and Modern Warfare.

Call of Duty, which depicts a soldier - oil dripping from his hands - references the words of WW1 veteran and poet Wilfred Owen. The words emblazoned in the tattoo across the soldier’s chest quote the words: Dulce et Decorum Est, from Owen’s famous poem which denounced the glorification of war and exposed the true horrors seen by those on the ground.

Enduring Freedom at Halcyon Gallery precedes the artist’s inclusion in the June 2016 exhibition, Realisms at The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious museums of art and culture.

Preferring not to comment explicitly on any one interpretation of his work, Griffiths offers multiple readings and an opportunity both to identify with, and question the iconography which permeates his art. Unlike the work of Nash, Nevinson, Dix or Bacon, Griffiths’ paintings do not attempt to convey the visceral terror of mortal combat in sharp discordant angles, contrasting tones and expressive brush work. Instead, more akin to devotional painting of a seventeenth-century Papist Italy, the true strength and efficacy of these paintings lies in their understatement and reservation.

Griffiths’ subjects glow softly at the edge of the picture plane, with such carefully observed and surprising detail that the viewer is compelled into contemplation. Through the theatrics of his compositions, Griffiths achieves a sense of twenty-first century history painting, dripping in symbolism, iconography and ancient mythological reference.

“This series looks at ideas I have been having regarding the triumph of the human spirit set in contrast to the more tangible authority held by various institutional or governmental structures of human society. The struggle for power can be found in the everyday rat-race or in the upper echelons of global politics.” - Mitch Griffiths

Griffiths was born in Nuneaton in 1971. In 2001 he was nominated for the National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award with Armoured Heart. The piece was chosen for the exhibition's promotional poster, which resulted in wide exposure for his work across London. His first solo show in London was mounted at the Enid Lawson Gallery in Kensington in 2002. During this period Halcyon Gallery became one of his favourite haunts, following an exhibition of work by the painter Robert Lenkiewicz that caught his interest. A chance conversation with a gallery representative and an opportunity to show the sketchbook he was carrying resulted in what has become an enduring creative collaboration; Halcyon Gallery started permanently representing Griffiths in 2004.

His first show at the gallery, Reality (2006), examined the power of brand names in such works as Twenty-first Century Boy – a portrayal of a figure in Calvin Klein underpants with a Coca-Cola trademark branded into his skin. Credit cards encircle the man’s head like a crown of thorns, and his chest and arms bear cut marks that suggest self-harm. The Promised Land (2010), another major solo show, exhibited 25 paintings that delve into the pain and contradictions of modern British life. Griffiths took the Union Jack as a recurrent theme, wrapping figures in it to raise provocative questions about patriotism and identity. He drew attention to society’s fixation on appearance in The Fitting Room, to its voyeurism and inconstancy in The Muse is Dead.

Griffiths latest exhibition Iconostasis (May 2013) took its concept from ecclesiastical architecture: the screen of icons dividing the sanctuary from the nave of an Eastern Orthodox church. He sees parallels with the way magazine covers and mobile-phone screens separate us from modern idols. The exhibition featured portraits of famous figures including Ray Winstone, Sir Bob Geldof and Keira Knightley.