Petria Mitchell

Artist Info

Biography

EDUCATION 1980 Jonathan Talbot Printmaking 1973 Vesper George School of Art, Boston, MA 1972 National Academy School of Design, New York, New York

Style

If Petria Mitchell’s paintings were sound, we would hear blue ice cracking under spruce, purple thunder breaking, the sun waltzing through the warm vast cloudscape. Her paintings call us to use all our senses as she creates New England with broad, free, abstract brush work. Mitchell employs a full, rich palette of subtly contrasting colors: blues set against ochre, red emerging from purple. The tension is symphonic, not overwhelming. Her composition and brushwork provide the integration needed for the painting’s harmony. Mitchell allows herself freedom with the brush, as though the dance and experience of the brushwork were the purpose of the painting. At times Mitchell changes the vantage point of our perspective, as she brings us higher, up into the woods where the space feels more intimate. Then she shifts the focus to the horizon as she explores the relationship between land and sky. The landscape forms become more abstract, with less specific reference to the natural world. The forms are created from the rhythm of abstracted brushwork. The composition is arrived at through gesture and paint.

Statement

"These paintings are compositions of internal places not visited on foot. Using nature as an initial reference point allows me to play with limitless visual possibilities with a thorough appreciation for abstraction. Working with diffused light lets me emphasize my interest in the plasticity of paint, rather than the physics of light."

Honors

SELECTED EXHIBTIONS 2008, 2007, 2006 Solo Exhibition, The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown, MA 2005 One person show, Wm. Baczek Fine Arts, Northampton, MA One person show, “The Lavender Hill Series,” Gallery North Star, Manchester, VT 2004 One person show, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT One person show, Doll-Anstadt Gallery, Burlington, VT “04 Landscape Show,” Wm. Baczek Fine Arts, Northampton, MA 2004-1989 Group Exhibits, Windham Art Gallery, Brattleboro, VT 2003 30th Regional Selections, Hood Museum, Hanover, NH One person show, Gallery North Star, Grafton, VT Two person show, Hunter-Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2002 One person, Doll-Anstadt Gallery, Burlington, VT “New Talent,” Alan Stone Gallery, New York, NY 2001 One person, “Structure and Landscape,” McGowan Fine Arts, Concord, NH One person, Gallery North Star, Grafton, VT Manchester Invitational, Equinox Hotel, Manchester, VT 2000 175th Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, NY One person, Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, VT Fall National Juries Exhibition. Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester, VT Regional Selections, 2000, Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery, Keene, NH AWARDS 2000 Juror’s Award, Fall National Juried Exhibitions, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT 1999 Second Place, Biennial Regional Juror’s Choice Competition, Thorne Sagendorph Gallery, Keene, NH Materials Award, Stratton Arts Festival 1996 Rifkin Award for Best In Show, Art-On-The-Mountain Jay Connaway Award for Best In Show, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT 1995 Best In Show, Centennial Art Show, Hastings House

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