X AW E RY WOLSKI
10 DECEMBER 2021 — 30 JANUARY 2022
X AW E RY WOLSKI PNEUMA
TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY
DENNIS LEE MITCHELL e s s ay : a w r i n k le i n t i me “We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing.” - Madeleine l’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
In 1962, Ad Reinhardt argued, “The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else…making it…more absolute and more exclusive—non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, nonimagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective.” Nearly sixty years later, Dennis Lee Mitchell takes this painter’s ethos to a new and dizzying height by obliterating paint altogether to work with smoke, a completely immaterial medium. Infinite Musings presents works on paper and a singular small canvas rendered black with smoke. Utilizing acetylene torches, Dennis Lee Mitchell creates surreal worlds into which we travel willingly, our eye leading the way. One work draws us into its depths in undulating ropelike layers of velvety black tumbled upon one another, the next appears like a far-off galaxy, perhaps a wrinkle in time encapsulated in smoke. “I draw with smoke as a way to render images of mutability. The result is a symbolic condensation from beginning to end, apotheosizing the smoke,” Mitchell says.
5
6
As an undergrad, Dennis Lee Mitchell found himself frustrated with the properties of paint. “I would put the paint on and I’d always look at the paint and say, well, nothing’s happening; it’s just sitting there.” Time and materiality were not lending him the clarity of voice he sought. “I knew I wanted to use heat. I wanted to use something in transition as I did my work.” First, he discovered ceramics. “I could just weld the clay together [with acetylene torches]. I loved it, because it was right there, real fast, and one day, there was cheap paper next to me and I put the torch to it […] and I was totally taken by that.” Each work on paper involves nearly 30-40 experimental ’proofs’ before the artist is satisfied. To achieve deep black requires about 20 or so layers of smoke. The paper is heated with an oxidized torch, resulting in the feeling of infinite depth underlying each work in this exhibition. The work on canvas has been a long time coming and is an achievement of painstaking attention and manipulation of media. The canvas is not burned in the method of Alberto Burri and his Arte Povera compatriots, but in fact coated effectively with smoke. Mitchell clearly relishes in the intellectual challenge of attempting the impossible. “Most of this work I do is always on the edge of materiality. […] In the past, I would make things and it always seemed like the work I did [that I liked] was on the fringe of being there. They’re almost not there.” The seductive void of the black work both flirts with Reinhardt’s tenet of art-as-art and presents something entirely intangible, beyond the “limiting thing.” Dennis Lee Mitchell lives and works in Washington, D.C. and is a 20162017 recipient of a Pollock/Krasner Foundation Grant. Mitchell has exhibited extensively both domestically and abroad, with numerous solo
7
As an undergrad, Dennis Lee Mitchell found himself frustrated with the properties of paint. “I would put the paint on and I’d always look at the paint and say, well, nothing’s happening; it’s just sitting there.” Time and materiality were not lending him the clarity of voice he sought. “I knew I wanted to use heat. I wanted to use something in transition as I did my work.” First, he discovered ceramics. “I could just weld the clay together [with acetylene torches]. I loved it, because it was right there, real fast, and one day, there was cheap paper next to me and I put the torch to it […] and I was totally taken by that.” Each work on paper involves nearly 30-40 experimental ’proofs’ before the artist is satisfied. To achieve deep black requires about 20 or so layers of smoke. The paper is heated with an oxidized torch, resulting in the feeling of infinite depth underlying each work in this exhibition. The work on canvas has been a long time coming and is an achievement of painstaking attention and manipulation of media. The canvas is not burned in the method of Alberto Burri and his Arte Povera compatriots, but in fact coated effectively with smoke. Mitchell clearly relishes in the intellectual challenge of attempting the impossible. “Most of this work I do is always on the edge of materiality. […] In the past, I would make things and it always seemed like the work I did [that I liked] was on the fringe of being there. They’re almost not there.” The seductive void of the black work both flirts with Reinhardt’s tenet of art-as-art and presents something entirely intangible, beyond the “limiting thing.” Dennis Lee Mitchell lives and works in Washington, D.C. and is a 20162017 recipient of a Pollock/Krasner Foundation Grant. Mitchell has exhibited extensively both domestically and abroad, with numerous solo
10
Globos (set of 5) Knitted wire Installation and dimensions varied
Air Dress, 2010 Knitted wire 60 x 23 1/2 x 5 inches
18
Scarf II (Chal Wire), 2011 Wire woven alpaca 67 x 11 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches
20
Scarf II (Chal Wire), 2011 Wire woven alpaca 67 x 11 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches
22
Globos (set of 5) Knitted wire Installation and dimensions varied
Air Circle Wire 33 inches in diameter
26
Pneuma, 2016 Knitted wire 170 x 136 x 55 inches
28
Air Landscape, 2009 Knitted wire Dimensions vary depending on installation
Cúmulos, 2016 Knitted wire 21 1/4 x 29 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches
32
Set of X Retablos, 1994-1997 Terracotta Each 11 x 9 1/2 x 5 1/3 inches Installation dimensions vary
34
62 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING TEL 307 733 0555 TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM