Artist Statement:

Hidden

Dreams, memories, the sacred—they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness . . .

—Yukio Mishima

I am what I put into this world. If art grants me the ability to spread ideas, beauty, and vision, how can I deny it? Relief printmaking is a medium I fell into only recently, but I can think of no other form of communication that is more meaningful to me. The act of carving, inking, and printing linoleum requires discipline, strength, thought, care—all I could ever wish to portray through my work.

I view objects as a means of remembrance. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a redundant idea, but I would argue that everything is in the eye of the beholder. The simplicity of a flower in a field becomes complex when we consider the competing roles it plays in different people’s lives: a token of affection, the audience to bad news, the background to an indifferent jogger. In this collection of prints and projected animations, I am linking objects to my experiences in the past year to show that people attach their intangible memories to the tangible world.

My piece Internet Research on How to Befriend Crows Not Playing Out as Fast as I Thought features a linocut print of scattered almonds. While carving this image, I pictured the crows in my backyard, staring at my offering of almonds but never eating them. The memory looped in my mind each time I traced the almond shapes with my blade, each time a long strand of linoleum fell to the ground. I took this sensation of looping memory and superimposed it over my almond print through projected animation. The fluidity of animated drawings holds a quality very similar to how a memory plays in my mind. Transformative shapes seep out of the almond print like brainwaves and briefly mold into a memory before melting back into nothingness. I visually allow the viewer a glimpse into my memory with the prints I have animated. The titles of my work directs viewers to see what I see in each object, but before doing so I invite them to impose their own memories on the commonplace objects I have depicted. What is hidden to me may be prominent to another.

—Kate Mitchell

Installation:

Linocut prints:

Key to Your New Home in the Kitchen on Halloween Night: Overwhelmed by Too Many Kids and Not Enough Candy, We Shut the Blinds and Watch the Menu of a DVD Loop Over and Over, Waiting for It to Play Since We Can’t Find the Remote, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 3 1/16”x1 ¼” Sheet: 16”x16”

The Cheerio Stuck to My Shirt the Day the Smoke Rolled in, When the Night Promised a Poetry Slam and my Hair was Still Blue, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 3/8”x3/8” Sheet: 16”x16”

Election Night Celebratory Apple Pie, Left Uneaten, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 10”x10” Sheet: 16”x16”

Bob the Feral Cat Tromps through the First Snow of the Season as I Eat Cheez-Its in My Kitchen, “September” by Earth Wind and Fire Playing Indifferently in the Background, and There’s a Platter on the Counter Containing the Candle of a New Years Eve Birthday Cake Finished the Night Before, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 4”x3/8” Sheet: 16”x16”

22nd Birthday Bouquet I Picked Out Myself Because I Know What I Like, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 20”x8 ¾” Sheet: 24”x18”

I Haven’t Seen You in Two Years but Now Here You Are, Getting a Tattoo and Showing Shoulder, the Mormon Girl Who Wore a Sweater to Prom, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 18”x12” Sheet: 24”x18”

Racing Across the Quad Stuffing Mozzarella Sticks in my Mouth and Wearing my Favorite Earrings, Ten Minutes Late to a Class I thought was Cancelled, 2017 Linocut on Mulberry Image area: 3 ½”x4” Sheet: 16”x16”

Murder of a Colossal Fly Committed on a Friday Night of Puritan Goat Movies and OkCupid Trolling Where No One Liked My La Croix Beverages, 2017 Linocut on Canvas Image area: 1 7/8”x2 ½” Sheet: 30”x41”

Death Narrowly Avoided as I Leave Intro to Fiction, 2017 Gauche painted Linocut on Canvas Image area: 23 ½”x34” Sheet: 7’x5 1/2’

Internet Research on How to Befriend Crows Not Playing Out as Fast as I Thought, 2017 Linocut on Canvas Image area: 1 5/8”x4 7/8” Sheet: 30”x41”

Accompanied animations: