Ann Mitchell

This gallery contains three projects: The Five Elements, Family Stories and Unmade

The Five Elements: Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations and Consciousness. 

In creating this handmade book I drew inspiration from the Buddhist concept of the Five Sovereign Elements that make up our existence. I wanted to create a space for meditation and contemplation that could function as a tool or as an object. 

Starting with a 360 degree panoramic that I shot in New Mexico’s Carson National Park, I created five photo-montage panels to symbolize each element. I then linked the first and last panel together with a single feature to give a sense of the connected nature of these elements. After constructing the images I chose cyanotype for its beautiful color, then hand coated, exposed and processed the prints. The front panels show the raw edges of the prints against the deckle edge of the watercolor paper. 

This limited edition (8) handmade book was printed on arches watercolor paper and is 3.5" x 5.5"

Family Stories

This series of alternative process prints contained several different sets of work and included multiple photo-based approaches as well as an installation piece. The series as a whole, explores our ideas of family, memory and identity. Each family has a deeply ingrained set of mythologies. Some come from society, such as our ideas of the perfect home, wife, husband or mother. While others start from within, as we believe the people around us can be explained by their place in our stories - yet both of these approaches rarely speak to the true complexities of life and identity. With these images I am seeking to explore family through the understanding of personal and cultural memories and their relationship to identity.

Toned cyanotypes on watercolor paper with vintage silver gelatin prints. 22" x 15"

Unmade

I was invited to participate in a "kamikaze" experience - where 30 artists each stage a 24hr exhibition at an experimental space. This process was enormously freeing, and one of the artworks that emerged was Unmade. In my life it was also a time period of change and challenges. I became very aware of that space between our first moments of consciousness and our return to the world. These images are recordings of how that experience each day is different, but they're also a recording of the commonplace beauty that surrounds us.

There’s always been a strongly charged experience with beds - their sense of intimacy, privacy, sexuality - and I’ve always loved the sensual quality and beauty of light on sheets. The images I have chosen to use have a balance between representation and abstraction -we are aware of the subject, but also can follow our own imagination through its lines and shadows.
Monoprints, Digital Archival Inks on Nepalese hand-made paper, 20" x 30"