Graeme Mitchell / Detached Pictures

Wilding Cran Gallery is pleased to present Detached Pictures, an exhibition of new work by Graeme Mitchell, on view April 1 – May 28, 2017.

Graeme Mitchell’s career as an artist began with photography. Broadening his practice to include drawing and painting furthered his investigations into the relationship between image and spectator.

Exploring topics like cults, alienation, and technology, Mitchell began to wonder how or why we believe in certain imagery. He is interested in one’s ability to view a photograph and believe that it reflects an honest truth. This subject matter became the theme for this body of work, and the act of painting from photography an opportunity to build on the idea of interpretation and perception. The original photographic image is lost, replaced by the painter’s version, but where does that leave the viewer in terms of the perceived reality?

“I think photographs satisfy something very innate in us,” Mitchell shares. “After all, they are generally held to be solid, true and democratic. However, in my experience, they are actually quite fluid. Photoshop something in or out, use a telephoto lens instead of a wide angle lens, make a different edit, rename it, and one fact becomes another; simply mis-caption it and history can be misplaced.”

Detached Pictures unveils the presumed validity of photographs by transforming them into paintings that express the fluidity of a captured image; prompting viewers to further explore the reality displayed in front of them. “The painted picture became fitting then, each mark on the canvas an act of faith, a phrasing of another possibility,” Mitchell states.

Image credit: Graeme Mitchell, Home Movie, 2016, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in

About Graham Mitchell
Graeme Mitchell (b. 1980, Brandon, Manitoba) grew up in rural areas of Manitoba and Oregon. Alongside his art practice, Mitchell is also widely recognized for his editorial portrait photography career, with portraits appearing in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times and WSJ Magazine. He and his wife, Molly, currently live in Los Angeles.