In the Eagle Rock area…Philip Martin Gallery presents 41 Paintings of Summer and Fall, by John Joseph Mitchell. The solo exhibition features new oil-on-panel paintings from the New Jersey-based artist. The gallery hosted an opening art party on January 6 , 2024. The show runs through February 3, 2024.
John Joseph Mitchell
The artist’s paintings come from looking – be it on a bike ride, a walk, time on his porch. “If something catches my eye I look at it longer. I look for ways to see. I begin paintings that way. Maybe there’s a good shape, pattern, color or I just like the scene. I take photos, make notes, sketch, and make monotypes. Eventually some combination of those things gives way to a painting.”
About the Artist
John Joseph Mitchell lives and works a few miles up the road from the house in which he grew up. It is a fairly rural area on the New Jersey Cape in between the Pine Barrens and the Atlantic Ocean. The alternating patches of woods, marshes, farms, the back bays of the barrier islands, the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay are where his works come into being. After ten years in Philadelphia, Mitchell moved home, seeking in part the people as well as the places that, as he describes it, “make up the visions of my mind’s eye.”
John Joseph Mitchell, Red Winged Blackbirds in Flight, 2023, Oil on panel in artist’s frame, 12 x 13 1/2 in
Inspiration
“The series aspect of these works solidifies their physical scale and intimacy,” Mitchell comments. His show title, 41 Paintings of Summer and Fall, points to the primacy of observation. At the same time, it refers to Hokusai’s famous work, “36 Views of Mount Fuji” (1830-32), a group of woodblock prints that place the viewer outside in different seasons and under a range of weather conditions.
Mitchell, who recently helped establish one of America’s first environmentally friendly screen-printing studios, is well versed in printmaking. The application of color in that medium is very specific, with careful attention to edge, shape and also line quality. This interest flows into Mitchell’s paintings, of which he notes, “I think color is the most important thing and maybe the most personal. I like it when a color exists in two points in space at once or when an edge is lost to two colors of similar value and temperature.”
On view: January 6 , 2024 – February 3, 2024
What: 41 Paintings of Summer and Fall, John Joseph Mitchell
Where: Philip Martin Gallery, 3342 Verdugo Road, Suite A, LA ,90065
When: Running through February 3, 2024
Website: https://philipmartingallery.com
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