A NEW LIFE:Bill Griffin gave up a lucrative oil career to paint, but he couldn't have foreseen the effect it would have on his personal life, writes Michelle McDonagh
EVERY DAY of the 29 years that he worked in the oil industry, Bill Griffin thought about going back to painting, until one morning he woke up and did. He didn't even finish the contracts he was working on, he just gave up work and became a full-time painter from that day on.
Born and raised in Cork city, Griffin loved painting from an early age. He went to London at 18 to train to be a professional artist but failed miserably.
"I never wanted to study art. At one point, I was supposed to go to Chelsea Art College but I didn't turn up for the interview. I felt that art college would influence me in the ways of the past whereas I wanted to try to find my own way," he says.
Unable to sell any of his work, apart from a handful of drawings for a paltry pound each, Griffin decided to get a job on an oil rig coming up to Christmas one year. The idea was that he would earn enough money to allow him to go back to his painting - it was to be 29 years before he would ever paint seriously again.
He started working on the drill floor of the oil rigs as a "roughneck" but quickly moved up the chain and became the owner of his own rig within seven years. He then bought another rig, but when the market went down he sold up and became an oil consultant, travelling the world for oil production companies, governments and the World Bank.
"I never had any formal training in the oil business, but I was good at maths. My grandfather was a mathematician. I went all over the world and met many of the so-called world leaders, including Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and Boris Yeltsin.
"I wasn't particularly impressed by any of them. They all exuded a certain power and were consumed by an almost insatiable lust for power."
Libyan leader Col Gaddafi gave Griffin a Rolex watch during one of his visits, but the unimpressed Cork man suspects he has a big box of them under the table and that he gives one to everybody.
It was while working for Bula Oil that Griffin met the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. "I met him at a social event at the end of Ramadan. He was very pleasant to me, but you have to remind yourself that this man was capable of hanging seven men on a raft in a swimming pool. He was ruthless."
In his role as an oil consultant, Griffin had many dealings with Hussein's sons and nephews, who were all involved in the oil business. He lived in Baghdad for months on end and, while it was a nice place to live prior to sanction, he describes it as "pretty awful" under sanction.
"I had no dangerous experiences while I was in Baghdad. One day, we were supposed to be bombed and Albert Reynolds made great efforts to get us out. He rang and warned us Baghdad was going to be bombed and told us to get out, but, fortunately for us, it wasn't."
Despite thinking about painting every day of the three decades he worked in the oil business, Griffin never picked up a paintbrush again until one day in 1999. "I just woke up one morning in Cork and started painting again. I didn't even call the company I was with at the time, I just let the contracts I was working on go. I knew that if I didn't do it then, I would never do it."
Over the years, friends who thought he had potential as an artist had given him paints, which all lay in a cupboard unopened, so he did not even have to go out and buy supplies.
Although his career took off quite quickly and he started selling reasonably well straight away, albeit not in great volume, Griffin's newfound creative success has come at a high cost - the breakdown of his relationship with his wife and, ultimately, his marriage.
During his years in the oil business, Griffin earned a lot of money, but he also spent lavishly. When he gave it up and went into painting, he found himself suddenly on a very tight budget and he went though his savings in just a year. The abrupt change in finances put huge strain on his marriage, he says.
Since he started painting nine years ago, he has sold more than 1,200 paintings. He is now able to make a living from painting although he smiles as he says: "I won't be buying any Lear jets."
Unlike others in the art world, he does not believe in inflating prices and thinks the work of some living painters is hugely overpriced.
"Painting has to transcend generations to be appreciated. Many of the guys regarded as the greatest painters in their day never surfaced again. It makes no sense to me that somebody can pay millions for a living painter because their work could become dated."
Now based in Cork where he lives in his late mother's house in which he grew up on Blarney Street, Griffin has had 10 solo exhibitions to date.
He held his first exhibition to critical acclaim in Cork at St Fin Barre's Cathedral in 2000 and his most recent in Kenny's Art Gallery in Galway in February.
"It seems that when I started painting again, either I began to understand the market or the market began to understand me," he says.
"At the start, it was taking me up to a month to do just one painting but I have become far more prolific. The more you do, the better you get at it, like everything else."
In his work, which he describes as "figurative expressionism", Griffin uses colour as his voice and symbolism as his language. Like many creative types, he doesn't work to a set routine but paints whenever the urge takes him, no matter what the time of day or night.
He might work for 20 hours at a stretch and not paint again for a few days. Despite this lack of routine, he is usually well ahead of deadlines - he has all the paintings for an exhibition at the Vision Centre in Cork next January ready.
Griffin's work can be found all over Cork, from Le Chateau pub on Patrick Street (one of his favourite watering holes) to the Opera House and the Crawford Gallery. He sells through galleries such as the Shaw Gallery and Buckley & Associates Fine Art in Cork and has a number of collectors of his work.
He has three grown-up children, two of whom live in Cork, who have all inherited their father's artistic talents but do not use them.
"I don't regret leaving the oil business at all. On the other hand, had I been able to foresee everything, I'm not sure I would have done it. I would have been afraid, but I would have hated myself for not doing it.
"I don't paint because I want to, I paint because I have to. It's exquisite, beyond description to create. It's frightening how joyful it is, totally addictive."
I don't paint because I want to, I paint because I have to. It's exquisite, beyond description to create. It's frightening how joyful it is, totally addictive