Nude – Jason Mitchell

Prep’ing for Photo Independent

I’ve finished mounting a new series of panels for my booth at Photo Independent 2018 in LA coming up in two weeks. These are fresh selections of my sessions from Dream Away, and incorporate some of the additional ideas that I often try and capture when shooting.

My theory is, if you’re lining up a session, you should add in time to work on those ideas that are just forming. That way you can work out some of the kinks on ideas that will develop into your next body of work.

I’ll be adding the wax layers soon, and will try and capture some imagery to help explain the process I’m developing for the encaustic works. I’m letting myself be inspired by camera light leaks, but we’ll see how the colors I’ll add manifest.

FYI, if you’re in the neighborhood, let me know and I’ll set you up with a free pass to the show!

Dream Away in silk

I’m grateful to have moved through the process of developing my series Dream Away for the show at 111 Minna Gallery. The presentation brought with it challenges that allowed me to look at different ways to view the pieces for the show. I’m quite happy to include along with the prints a collection of silk banners and two films. The combination of these elements makes for a truly immersive experience at the gallery. Getting there of course was a balance of how to play very dominant elements while including traditional presentations.

The many facets of Dream Away

I’m beginning to explore ideas for my upcoming show at 111 Minna that delve into alternate facets of the project. The light and floaty nature with an almost suspended yet certainly in motion bodies are naturally lending themselves to a exploring their beginnings and ends. But in turn, they also lend themselves to a twists and turns in their character. Read More

Dream Away in Snap!

The power of the personal relationship is a great way to forge and strengthen your path to future opportunities. Case in point, Ransom & Mitchell had the pleasure of showing at Patrick Kahn’s gallery Snap! in Orlando, Florida as part of the Art Attacks co-curated show this summer. Stacey made her way back to where she spent the bulk of her childhood and had an opportunity to hang out with Patrick a bit. One of the subjects they touched on was about my new nude series Dream Away. It was my impression that he would enjoy the work, and that hopefully the aesthetic would fit in with his offerings (or at least he could help point in the right direction).

Turns out my gut was correct, he responded well to the series and has asked for three pieces to be in a selection of contemporary photography showing along side All About Warhol at CU-1 Gallery in Miami, Florida. The reception is Friday, September 19th from 7pm to 10pm — please stop by if you get the chance. I’m quite pleased that so far this series has been finding open doors in the fine art world.

Finalist for Critical Mass

Excellent news came in the other day that I have been selected as a finalist for Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2014. I submitted the Dream Away series with a great edit of the available works that I’ve pulled together so far. From here, my portfolio will be reviewed by 200 industry folks as they consider the individual merits of each of the finalists. The idea behind it is to generate a load of exposure for the artists, and put them in front of a number of the people guiding the industry today. This includes art periodicals, fine art galleries, photography festivals, photo editors, book publishers, and other people of note.

I must thank my friend R udi Dundas for pointing me to Critical Mass in the first place, as an important opportunity to get my work into the world arena. This is part of the the importance of having personal relationships with your peers. The cost of a refreshing beverage can introduce you to wonderful new ideas, and encourage you to try and open a few new doors. Huzzah for clinking glasses.

Dream Away series makes a debut

I’ve been working on a new nude series this year called Dream Away. The images are light, floaty, dreamy if you will, and capture a certain otherworldly spirit. These started off as an ethereal vision that I had floating in my mind, something that I wanted to materialize. I was also drawn to it as it seemed like a project I could mull over, shoot a few sessions, play with it a bit, shoot more — something that I could both explore different facets of, while refining a core thread of the series. Already I have a decent idea of a concrete variant that may become it’s own series to develop.

Part of the inspiration for the series was to approach them much in the same way as a pencil sketch — focusing on an interesting form, developing strong lines, and letting other elements go. The technical approach is more subtractive that additive, in that I begin with a full figure and reduce it to the core spirit. This is augmented by the use of blur to let certain elements go, while employing careful dodging of the image to continue to draw the eye in.

The results are beginning to get some notice, and I’ll be showing one next month at ModernBook Gallery in SF as part of the APA SF Curator’s Voice show. I’ve already received a positive response on the series as a whole from the guys at MB and am looking forward to them possibly handling a few more pieces in the months to come.

Tortuous series

I’ve been working on a figurative nude series in the studio that I think is coming of age. It’s contorting the nude form to challenge the acceptance of physical beauty and idea of eroticism. I’ve been having a great deal of fun working with all sorts of models on this unconventional concept, and the models have been enjoying doing a little some thing different. You can see a gallery of images on this site.

The added bonus is that this work has been informing my other processes and helping to hone and shape ideas. And I feel an adaptation developing that can make it even more surreal (and I do hope so). 🙂

Stacey discovered a great paper for these to print on … Moab Slickrock Metallic. It’s a metallic ink jet paper that lets the high end of the contrast remain reflective. It gives the highlights an absolutely dimensional feel. If you’d like to see them, there is a book at our show at Varnish Fine Art … just ask.