By Hugh Mclean

MICHAEL Griffith is an artist who loves art and developed the love for it when he was just seven years old. According to Griffith, he developed this love for art because a relative who used to visit him frequently and expose him to drawing.

“He basically did doodles but it was the most inspirational thing that I have ever seen and it was then I fell in love with art,” said Griffith.

Griffith has been practising art professionally for about 10 years now.
He wanted to create and draw which encouraged him to follow up art. Griffith once worked as an art teacher a few years ago and he found that passing on the knowledge or being able to impact youths through art is an exuberating feeling.

Griffith graduated from the University of Guyana in 2017 at the top of his class, while he was also selected to be on the honour roll several times.

He also stated that he knew once he ventured into the field of Art, he would have ended up teaching or passing on the knowledge.

“This is the reason I started to teach,” Griffith posited also noting, “I wanted a place to showcase my art, since art is not a forefront of career choices in Guyana and since my wife [also] had a vision of her having her own art studio or at least be immersed in art.”
His wife, Karen Budhram, who also participates in the art studio, has her own creations but it is not a full-time career to her as it is to Griffith.

“I fall in love with the process of creating my art and moving on to the next part of my art. It can be really fulfilling,” he said. “My favourite art form is drawing; I am more attached to digital and traditional drawing.”

Griffith hopes to hold his first Art exhibition before year-end and become integrated into Guyana’s society and that “Oxygen Arts”,  his brand,  becomes a name that is synonymous with art in Guyana.

Griffith also hopes that his business will grow and also hopes to move it to a more central area in the next few years. He stated that he wishes that it can be one of the leading art studios in Guyana next to Castellani House.

Late in 2018, Griffith held a four-week drawing class for the children from the orphanage in his area. He recently completed some volunteer work at the Sophia Youth Detention Centre in the form of a painted mural.

“A few months before that my friend, an activist, Lina Free rapped up another mural at the Sophia Youth Centre,” he said.

The most recent class was a five-week programme where he felt a great sense of pride and success. This was based on the fact that during this time even he was surprised by the level of improvement in the children’s work.

Apart from that, his achievements include winning first prize at The National Visual Arts Competition and Exhibition on several occasions. He has represented Guyana at CARIFESTA and has also taken part in exhibitions both nationally and internationally.