Dan Griggs was born in Las Cruces NM. He has been exhibiting since the mid-70's, mainly in New York, Santa Fe and Palm Springs.
He studied under two wonderful teachers/artists in Albuquerque, Siegfried Hahn and Howard Wexler who taught him how to draw and paint. He is convinced he couldn't have found better teachers had he looked the world over. They worked as professional artists both in Europe and here in the States.
Artist Statement
Dan Griggs paints form life. Most of his paintings are created using a life model which is what he was trained to do. He very much enjoys the relationship between the artist and model. He believes that painting from life offers much more in the way of information regarding line, tonality and color. The same can be said for still lives. Dan spends a lot of time searching for the right item for each set-up. Then he does his uttermost to translate the three-dimensional still life into a two-dimensional painting.
Dan strives for his paintings to have a psychological dimension underlying the visual. He looks at paintings by the old masters, impressionists and post-impressionists for inspiration. He believes artist such as Rembrandt came closest to portraying what is at the soul of art.