Disagreeable Giver

Marc Mitchell

About the Exhibition:

All of the works in Mitchell’s exhibition reference dazzle painting, a type of camouflage that was painted onto battleships in WWI. The goal with this type of painting was not to conceal the ship’s position but to confuse the enemy about the ship’s course. In this body of work Mitchell skillfully references this concept in his use of graphic hard edge painting combined with printed digital imagery. The patterns, panels, and video stills become tropes that highlight a correlation between past and present. He admits to being inspired by disparate influences and makes work that resides in both nostalgia and contemporary popular culture. The exhibition includes paintings and digital prints that were created during Mitchell’s two recent artist residencies at the Banff Center and the Vermont Studio Center. It also includes a sound piece that he created in collaboration with John C Kelley, Assistant Professor of 4D and Time-Based Arts at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

About the Artist:

Marc Mitchell is an artist and curator whose works have been featured in solo and two-person exhibitions throughout the United States at institutions such as the University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of Alabama; REDUX Contemporary, Charleston; GRIN Gallery, Providence; and Laconia Gallery, Boston. His work has been featured in the Boston Globe (2014 and 2016), as well as New American Paintings (2014, 2017, and 2018). Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas. He is the Curator and Director of Exhibitions for the University’s Fine Art Center Gallery. Over the past 10 years, Mitchell has been responsible for exhibitions that featured artists such as Josef Albers, Mel Bochner, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Bradford, Sara Greenberger-Rafferty, Philip Guston, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, Mary Reid Kelley, Allan McCollum, Richard Misrach, Thomas Nozkowski, Kay Rosen, Erin Shirreff, Jessica Stockholder, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Lawrence Weiner, Wendy White, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, and many others.