Jeffry Mitchell | Seattle Art Museum

Jeffry Mitchell's work is included in Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture now on view at the Seattle Art Museum through September 2, 2024.

"Poke in the Eye celebrates the aesthetic practices that emerged across the West Coast in the 1960s and ’70s. Reacting against the sleekness, formality, and coldness of East Coast movements like Pop Art and minimalism, artists on the West Coast—particularly in Seattle and the Bay Area—began creating artwork that was intentionally offbeat. These artists used traditional craft techniques and bold color, centered figuration and narrative, and often employed an irreverent sense of humor. Poke in the Eye draws primarily on SAM’s collection to present an inclusive view of this countercultural style that continues to reverberate today.

Poke in the Eye is the first major exhibition curated entirely for SAM by Carrie Dedon, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Working within the museum’s collection, Dedon brings together compelling examples of these works that together shed fresh light on art movements distinct to the West Coast and its artistic community. Poke in the Eye incorporates works by renowned Northwest artists including Patti Warashina, Fay Jones, and Howard Kottler, whose innovative and playfully garish creations provided the foundations of this alternative movement, as well as more recent artworks by Jeffry Mitchell and Woody De Othello, whose contemporary sculptures have revived a global interest in craft and ceramic art."

For more information visit the Seattle Art Museum website: https://seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/pokeintheeye