Jeffry Mitchell: Selected by Seattle Art Fair Artistic Director Laura Fried

Laura Fried, the Artistic Director of the Seattle Art Fair, selected Jeffry Mitchell, among several artists, to create special projects for the fair.

For over twenty-five years Seattle-based Jeffry Mitchell has produced idiosyncratic drawings, prints and sculptures. His work weaves together high and low references that span religion, sex, nature, folk, craft, and decorative arts traditions. At the fair, Mitchell presents a selection of new outsized ceramic sculptures, screens, and large-scale drawings, each imbued with his characteristic urgency, curiosity and experimentation. With a specific visual language often comprising alphabet primers, flowers, elephants, bears, and other flora and fauna, Mitchell responds to specific aspects of the history of art, craft, and visual culture, while blurring the distinction between each and exploring the possibilities within the decorative and the theatrical.

Image credit: Jeffry Mitchell, Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell [installation view]. 2012-2013. Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. R.J. Sánchez. Courtesy of the artist and PDX CONTEMPORARY ART, Portland.