By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on October 31, 2019
DENMARK artist Jen Mitchell is drawing on her Italian-American, abstract-expressionist heritage for an exhibition she describes as the most abstract she has ever created.
Unravelling will open at Albany’s Vancouver Art Centre on November 15 and remain until December 4.
Mitchell defines it as a “neo-Cubist exploration of the human body” and said it is a homage to her Great Aunt Linda Lindeberg, known for her contribution to the American art world as well as for her marriage to Giorgio Cavallon, an Italian-American artist who was one of the founding members of the American Abstract Expressionist Movement.
“This series looks at the way in which our patterns, habits and assumptions are mapped onto the human body to become embedded as knots, which, with the utmost delicacy and care, may be unraveled,” Mitchell said.
“It draws on neo-Cubist influences and plays with the way in which subjects are seen from multiple angles and represent the many facets of a single form.
“These paintings fragment the whole, unravel the stories we tell, and reassemble our bodies in a way that is of our making; they are us, but also something else altogether.”
Mitchell hopes the exhibition can highlight the style and works of her late Great Aunt, as she said like many female artists throughout history, Lindeberg had “slipped into relative obscurity”.
“This is the most abstract work I have undertaken, and it has been a real joy to explore that space which is quite different to my oil landscapes or portraits,” she said.
“For me, creativity is something that feels like it flows through me, not something that I direct in a conscious way, and this series felt like it wanted to be born this year.”
