Katherine Mitchell

Art and Meaning, 2009, 4'x4', Acrylic and graphite.

Drawing for My Mother, 2007, 2'1x1'9, Graphite, ink, chine collé and gouache.

“The works on paper began as texts of imaginary conversations or correspondences. For example, one work is a letter of appreciation to my mother. All of the Drawings for My Mother, 2009 were done in a very intense and rapid stream of consciousness style with no editing or revision. The texts were imbedded in the layers of the painting.

The canvases are palimpsests of texts of imagined conversations among a variety of artists, writers and thinkers whom I’ve heard speak recently or whose work I had recently read. These sources include Walter Benjamin, Gerhard Richter, Alice Walker and Philip Glass, among others, as well as my own comments. All of the ideas discussed concern the making of art and its meaning. There is irony in the fact that I am drawn to reveal the verbal content of this work while the texts insist on the dominant importance of form. Art and Meaning includes as the final layer of text a series of questions the answers to which are discussed in the layers beneath.

All of these works explore my interest in the relationship of form and content, meaning, and how art becomes meaningful.”

Katherine Mitchell graduated from the Atlanta College of Art (BFA, 1968) and obtained a MFA from Georgia State University in 1977. Her works reside in the High Museum, the J. B. Speed Museum, MOCA GA, the Arkansas Art Center, Agnes Scott College, and the Carlos Museum. She is represented by Sandler Hudson Gallery.

Artist Website: www.katherinemitchellart.com