Michael Mitchell (b.1991) explores the boundary between abstraction and representation. His paintings and collages warp space and movement to see how far a subject can changed before it becomes unrecognizable
Mitchell was born in Richmond, VA and grew up in the upstate of South Carolina. A love of cartoons and comics drove his early ambitions to become an artist. In 2007, he was accepted into the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities where he focused on Visual Art. He received his first formal training art while there and was exposed to the wider possibilities in the Artworld. In 2009, he graduated high school and left to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Mitchell originally began creating collages to break away from the monotony of traditional technical drawing. He aggressively flattened the space in his compositions, and broke forms into disjointed but rhythmic shapes.
In 2018, Mitchell began working as a high school art teacher. Teaching students traditional techniques such as linear perspective, he reignited his interest in rendering 3-d space on a flat surface. His work began to play with the variety of, sometimes contradicting, methods of creating depth.
During this same time, Mitchell began to make increasingly distorted versions of his subjects. Influenced by Rudolf Arnheim's writing on the psychology of vision and Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenon of Percpetion, Michael sought to create works that feel familiar but unrecognizable.
Today he continues this work through painting which allows him to create softer forms and a broader range of colors. He lives in Florence, SC and continues to work as an art teacher.
Education
2017 - 2018
University of North Carolina - Charlotte
K-12 Art, Graduate Certificate
2009-2013
Maryland Institute College of Art
BFA in Illustration, Cum Laude
Exhibitions
2023
Lake City Creative Alliance Artfields - Lake City, SC
2022
Spartanburg Artist Collective Annual Juried Exhibition - Spartanburg, SC. First Prize
2020
Florence Art Alliance Small Works Show - Florence, SC
Contact Me
123-456-7890