Born into a creative and turbulent family in Melbourne in the 1950s, in a modernist open house designed and built by her architect father with floor to ceiling glass windows and no internal doors and a constant flow of visitors of very definite opinions, life at home maintained a bohemian and sometimes explosive tempo.

From this stream of visitors came glimpses into the lives of the people that made up Sally Griffin's family history. Among these was the expatriate painter, Colin Colahan. Colin was uncle to Sally's father and the pair did many plein-air painting trips together around coastal Melbourne beaches and the inland bush. The stories of their travels and Colin's subsequent artistic life in Europe fascinated and inspired Sally as a youngster.

As a very small child Sally was drawn to many different forms of personal expression but mainly it was drawing that fascinated her. Home contained a 'bar' that ran the whole distance of an open plan kitchen, about 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. It had a surface that could be drawn on and then 'ajaxed' off and she spent her early years, right up to the time she left home, covering this bench with lead pencil drawings on an almost daily basis and having them scrubbed off at night for the evening meal. She was to paint many mural-type images over the walls of the house.

During her four years at art school in Melbourne, Sally Griffin concentrated on painting, drawing and philosophy of art. It was both an interesting and exacting period, where disciplines such as life drawing were compulsory. In the final years her painting teacher's interest was closest to the New York colour field school and his enthusiasm was passed on to her as an art student. Sally was keen to re-integrate her new modernist skills with a figurative 'story'.

After graduating, the young artist arrived in New Zealand in 1973 for a month long holiday but Sally was ready for a change and quickly found herself captured and absorbed by the new country. She has always been compelled to record the human drama and fresh experiences served to allow this expression to surface again.

In the early years she lived at an urban 'commune' in Devonport, Auckland, with a group of young graduates and creative people and inherited the painting studio of their landlord David Armitage, which was a large loft-type warehouse out the back. It overlooked the sea in the distance and the neighbour's vegetable garden next door. It was here that she undertook a self-imposed three year apprenticeship in lead and chalk pastel drawings while also working on a vocabulary of images in acrylic and oils on canvas. Later she was to study etching for a year, at the art school in the University of Auckland.

Sally Griffin exhibited regularly from 1978 till 1994. Her first solo exhibition was a series of 'life-size' drawings in pencil and chalk at the Little Theatre at Auckland University. She was represented by Denis Cohn in his Auckland gallery from 1979 - 1990 and had many shows during those years. She was awarded Queen Elizabeth 2 Arts Council grants in 1983, 1984, 1989 and 1990 and was represented in group exhibitions that toured nationally.

During the nineteen-eighties Sally became known for her politically orientated wall murals, her large paintings and her commitment to a popular fine art. She designed and executed murals from 1980, using time and space to develop bigger themes. A 90'x 12' mural in Northland was destroyed amid much controversy and her later work, both in exhibition and murals, attracted interest and debate. A large diptych, 'The Gift' featuring political and business figures of the 'Rogernomics' era was withdrawn from the Art and Working Life, exhibition when it reached Wanganui.

During the 1990's, Griffin reflected on her early work in New Zealand. "I've been exploring what I call a Pacific Cubist technique, which enables me to create a structure for my vision of post-colonial issues. Fragmentation and montage express historical images wrenched from the past into a modern context."

Griffin's style is distinctly her own. The paintings and drawings are a unique blend of lyric dream, the broadly political and recognisable New Zealand - and more latterly - Australian imagery and landscapes. They invite the viewer to be attracted and intrigued by a combination of message and symbol but explanation of the works themselves is no longer important to her. Of her new work she simply says; "I am bringing forward a synthesis of my early work and the middle period as we move into the light and shadows of a new century. To be thoughtfully enjoyed!"