We are pleased to introduce to you a new artist at Pryor Fine Art, Geoff Mitchell.
Geoff's paintings intrigued us from the start, but it was after reading his artist statement and learning more about his influences and process, that I more deeply appreciated the work. PFA link to Geoff Mitchell artist page
Order of the Amaranth 2 48x36 mixed media on panel
Typical blog protocol would call for more images and less text, but if you will bear with me, Geoff's artist statement and "Under the Surface" web interview (which can be found on his page on our website) are worth the read. I will leave all in Geoff's own words as he is a gifted writer and story teller in addition to painter. Enjoy...
Seeing the Elephant 60x60 mixed media on panel
MITCHELL (b.1971) was born and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. He
received a BFA in Painting from Western Michigan University and an MFA
in Visual Studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. After
living in Chicago for several years, he moved to California in 2005
where he founded White Apple Studios in Los Angeles. The studio name
stems from the ideas of white being a pure and empty state, the
beginning, innocent and open to any creative possibility; and the apple,
the symbol of temptation, as well as a symbol of life, death and
rebirth.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a guide map for how one could approach my work, I often like to tell a
story from my childhood to create an analogy. When I was a young boy of
five or six years old, my family was living in a trailer park in the deep
south. Behind the last trailer of the front row, there was a narrow dirt
trail that ran alongside the property fence. One day while playing on
that trail, I discovered a faint and peculiar grey handprint on the back
of the metal trailer. The handprint appeared to depict elongated fingers
and a small palm that melted away at the wrist. The nails were abnormally
long, grotesque and eerie.
There was a palpable connection in my mind as to where this handprint had
come from. At my grandmothers house, there was a childrens bible that I
would look at when visiting her. On page one hundred and one there was an
illustration of Lucifer being cast from heaven. He was a brown creature
with a partially human form and a long thin tail. His legs mutated into
hooves instead of feet. He had webbed wings of a bat that resembled
semi-transparent membranes. Much of his body was covered in fur and his
ears came to a tipped point. He had dark arched eyebrows with well-defined
cheekbones and lips. He was almost handsome in the face. Then, there were
his hands. He had long unkempt nails in the image. His nails matched
exactly to those of the handprint behind the trailer. In my childs mind,
this strange impression on the back of the trailer was the handprint of
the devil.
This pivotal event of my childhood is a classic example of the illusions
and misperceptions that characterize the sensation of pareidolia. This
experience is defined as a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and
random stimulus, often an image or sound, being perceived as significant.
Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds or
hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. Our man in the moon
or the moon rabbit of Asian cultures can also be considered a product of
this phenomenon. It is an idea that has driven my endeavors as a visual
artist and it is an excellent place to begin when talking about my work.
The paintings I make do not appear abstract, and in reality they cannot
be. I use representational imagery within each work to a varying degree.
What may be considered peculiar is how I use representational imagery in a
free associative and purely intuitive manner. I mix and layer images
together in a way that is reminiscent of an abstract painter layering
color. And I always find it fascinating to see what will happen in the
amalgamation.
I choose imagery based on a number of considerations including the mood I
am striving to create, compositional concerns and the texture of the work.
Most importantly however, it is an affinity for what I find beautiful and
a sheer curiosity about the eccentric associations these disparate
elements attach to one another that drives me.
Over time, I have become increasingly aware that as an artist I make it
simultaneously easy and complicated for my audience. My paintings are
often perplexing in that they present questions with no explanations. Yet
they are simple when one discovers that the questions have no right
answers. I see myself as the designer of an expanse of clouds. Each member
of my audience will find their own images and stories within these clouds;
and discover their own handprint.
Geoff Mitchell's paintings are currently hanging in the gallery. We look forward to seeing you soon, Christina
