Jeffry Mitchell

“Made from love and mischief, they inspire wonder and impart delight.” Sylvia Wolf, Director, Henry Art Gallery

Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present Jeffry Mitchell for our opening exhibition at 1275 Minnesota Street.

It is difficult to write about Jeffry Mitchell’s work without writing about Jeffry Mitchell – brilliant, theatric, generous and charismatic, Mitchell is as joyful as his artworks. He happily exploits the decorative arts, referencing both Eastern and Western ceramics and displaying a deep level of scholarship and craft. His plates and cups engage us with notions of community and celebration. His work and installations abound with flowers, lambs, bears, elephants, ribbons, and often bearded, beefy men.

This exhibition, comprised of a wall installation of twenty-two plates (produced at ZKM in conjunction with RITE Editions), along with linens and sculptures, captures Jeffry Mitchell at his most playful. Conflating tablecloths with paintings, wall sculpture with functional plates, and sculptures with vases, Mitchell references Chinese calligraphy, childhood illustrations, and Queer culture. Innocence and sexuality fuse in a large floor piece comprised of elephants. As Mitchell comments, “Yes elephants. I’d have to say that I had no reason in mind when I started working with the elephant. I adore the Babar book illustrations, and the Belly on Ganesh gives me a tug, the sexy and vital convex opposite to the crucified Jesus’s concave core. I’ve been asked the question so many times and I still claim to not really know why. It couldn’t be as simplistic as the trunk looks like a dick and the ears balls, could it?..” (From Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell, Henry Art Gallery, 2013).

Jeffry Mitchell lives and works in Seattle, Washington. He received a BA in painting from University of Dallas in Irving, Texas then moved to Japan to teach English. After an apprenticeship with a production potter in Seto, Mitchell received his MFA in printmaking at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. One person exhibitions of Mitchell’s work include: Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell, 2012-2013, Henry Art Gallery; Some Things and Their Shadows, 2009, Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA; Shiny Happy Pretty (with Tina Hoggatt), 2008, Missoula Art Museum; Hanabuki, 2001, Henry Art Gallery; My Spirit, 1992, New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; and Documents Northwest: The Poncho Series, 1990, Seattle Art Museum.