Sam Griffin’s solo show “Second Draft,” on view at The Jewish Museum of Heichal Shlomo Cultural Center, will not disappoint those who manage to see the painter’s work at what is ostensibly a pivotal moment in his career.

The small gallery holds an auspicious preview of what is to come from the young artist, whose recent works paint a picture of his time spent as an active soldier in the first months of the Gaza war following Oct. 7. The potent series sheds light on wartime reality, telling the story of an Israeli soldier on the verge of entering Gaza while a nation grapples with uncertainty and complexity.

Griffin was born and raised in London and Cyprus, immigrating to Israel at the age of 20. Like many olim for generations before him, Griffin moved to Israel with a purpose, a vision, and a willingness to be part of the crafting of the Zionist dream. Part of that meant enlisting in the IDF, part meant building a life and artistic career here.

“Second Draft” is Griffin’s first solo exhibition and will be on view in Jerusalem until the end of November. The show unveils his latest body of works, a series of paintings inspired by his role as a soldier, reflecting the two periods of active duty he served when drafted this past year. The series includes expressive landscapes and cityscapes, representing the surroundings Griffin had his eyes on during his time spent along the border between Israel, Egypt, and Gaza.

The artist painted these works in the gallery as he looked back on the quick sketches and iPhone photos he took months ago while on duty. Large, hand-stretched canvases represent a new scale for Griffin. His signature artistic style – large strokes of paint covering the canvas, forming tangible textures, combined with layers of turpentine stripping away content to create white space anew – puts a captivating composition at the forefront of each scene. Griffin’s technique emphasizes the material of color, where an almost Rothko-like dependence on his subtle palette encourages the viewer to connect emotionally with the important selection of hues.

First and second encounters

I first encountered Griffin’s works in 2017 during his final show at the graduate exhibition of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, where he presented a series of figure paintings using the same method.

These earlier works featured the daily custom of Hassidic men immersing themselves in a mikveh (ritual bath) before morning prayers. I was drawn to the artist’s ability to look at his Jewish identity with pure curiosity and to his success at offering new perspectives on the topic.

At the time, Griffin’s meticulous technique stood out among the graduates from Bezalel’s fine arts class when, as I recall, many students seemed intent on producing conceptual yet mostly immaterial intellectual clickbait.

At Griffin’s studio in 2020, I had the chance to encounter his works again in a more intimate setting. This time, Griffin was working on an ongoing series, “Wise Old Man.” Here, Griffin seeks to document his nebulous family history, spanning from Russia to London at the beginning of the 20th century. Without real images to start with, Griffin uses photographs from the Holocaust as a visual compass, resulting in ghostly figure paintings that express a state of mind: the paradigm of the “wise old man.”

GRIFFIN’S WORKS seem to be consistently intertwined with contemplating his Israeli and Jewish identity, capturing ideas and emotions before they become harder to grasp over time. Void of influence from external politics, ideology, or liturgy, the artist bridges the gap between past and present, tradition and reality, portraying a deep internal struggle.

In “Second Draft,” this overarching theme is profoundly present within the depictions of the Israel-Hamas war. Like Griffin’s search for the wise old man, his new series takes us on a journey to confront individual and collective identity – this time, as we witness a watershed moment in our history. A combination of large canvas paintings and small works on paper, the series sets out more of the artist’s raw self.

Thoughtful observation and honest introspection are showcased in Griffin’s ability to hone in on his subjects with a painterly force. The artistic language in the series is devoid of human figures save for one small portrait on paper of a blurred, faceless soldier at the entrance to the exhibition. The rest of the works on display are open and urban landscapes representing the Gazan border that Griffin observed during his reserve duty. Packed with a quiet, intense energy, these works shed light on the soldier’s reality.

Several of these paintings appear ambiguous, even peaceful, at first glance. Large brush strokes of color blend in with one another to capture a scene at dawn, daytime, or sunset: a quiet open road, a desert landscape, or an empty horizon. Painterly blocks of color combined with the artist’s quick application of turpentine leave us frozen in a moment in time. Without context, we’d be unsure if what we were looking at was a war zone (Is that a cloud? Or is it a smoke remnant from a recent bomb?).

FOUR SMALL cityscapes appear in geometric forms taking shape on paper. Destruction is, in a sense, not tangible to the viewer in these scenes, but the dark palette is clearly ominous. In one painting, a bright Israeli sky is juxtaposed with the dark earth, where hazy figures of tanks are seen progressing toward a rose-colored sunrise – a motif seen in one or two others that makes the viewers hold their breath.

War is strongly embodied in some of the paintings. We see sensual and haunting cityscapes that are overwhelmed by mushrooms of smoke in the background, making tension more palpable. One noticeable element is how Griffin depicts smoke in some of these works by removing the paint from the canvas. Whether intentional or not, his technique becomes symbolic of a wider narrative dealing with breakdown and loss.

Compared to other works dealing with Oct. 7 and the subsequent war, Griffin takes us on a more internal journey. As observers, we are neither the victim nor the perpetrator in any obvious way – and the subjects echo the artist’s subconscious drive, encouraging us to have an inner dialogue.

I also find that, within the physical loss, the artist is imbuing his work with hope, meaning, and rebuilding. Not that he is glorifying war, but there is the dreamlike atmosphere that the viewer may use, perhaps as the artist did, as a tool for making sense of the unfolding reality.

In one or two paintings, where the turpentine is applied to the buildings to create the effect of light, it drips down, literally breaking apart the paint on the canvas. The visual recalls destruction, but at the same time the liquid takes the form of roots yearning to sink themselves into some sort of foundation. In another landscape, explosions depicted in deep green against a bright yellow sky have a nuclear, apocalyptic feel – yet another glance at the same scene shows them to be loosely painted trees, flourishing during sunrise. One urban scene, which features a distinct blue palette flashing back and forth on the canvas, is reminiscent of a flood. There’s a hidden biblical quality that, if one reflects further, brings a grim idea of rebirth to mind.

WE CAN’T avoid the precariousness of the work at hand. Critics of Griffin’s series might ask, where are the Palestinians and their suffering? But we can appreciate that Griffin is drawing from the necessity of his own experience, not out of avoidance for the other.

Like so many Israeli artists before him, he is manifesting a complicated relationship with our identity, land, and future. Griffin manages this in a delicate way, without imposing ideological or nationalistic symbols – without concluding what that means just yet.

A piece of Israeli art history sits ironically among Griffin’s work: A large painting of Jerusalem by Reuben Ruvin (1893-1974), the size of which is triple that of any of Griffin’s works, sits smack in the center at the back of the gallery. This is an interesting addition to the exhibition, albeit part of the museum’s permanent collection, and I’m not sure the artist had a dialogue with the painting. But as a viewer, I couldn’t help but reflect on its impact.

The vision Ruvin depicts in this large-scale work reveals an ideal, celestial Jerusalem – a pure Garden of Eden that is sheltered and expressed with a childlike innocence. At the time, many Zionist artists used their art to inject a hopeful fashioning of a new world in the Land of Israel. Juxtaposing the works of the two artists, one can’t help but yearn for Ruvin’s Zionist dream.

Have today’s young Israeli artists abandoned it? Have we abandoned it? Griffin has not, but he is blending it with a difficult reality.

In comparison to Ruvin’s version of Israel, it’s not the hand of God but the unsure hand of man that Griffin captures and paints with. The contrast reflects a truth, which as civilians, soldiers, families of soldiers, victims, and families of victims in 2024, in the midst of war, feels out of our hands and yet is so effectively within reach.

Griffin’s paintings contain an existential contradiction that is genuine, perplexing, and even devastating.

Instead of choosing to either abandon or applaud his identity, Griffin powerfully confronts us with it, mirroring a collective lifelong need to produce a body of art that, rather than allowing us to escape reality, compels us to delve deeper into it.■ For more information: samgriffinart.com/