Our artist of the week, GAVIN MITCHELL
is a London based artist currently working at Wimbledon Art Studios and as a part time art therapist. His work also featured in our ‘Vintage Newton’ exhibition last year.
Captured through photographs taken from his travels and the environment around him he recreates his original photographs by digitally collaging visual layers to enhance the subject matter.
Mitchell’s work focuses mainly around photography and collage inspired by human and material landscapes.
The East Meets West 2014 series takes early 20th century Oriental postcards showing the daily routine of a Geisha as its subject yet with a Pop Art influence. Mitchell playfully portrays the Geishas reading Playboy magazines and entitles them ‘Secret Pleasures’, ‘Secret Stash’ and ‘Hear no See no speak no centrefold’ which insinuates and enhances a kind of naughtiness by the Geishas, creating an image that comments on the dividing opinions between Eastern and Western cultures.
In his other work, inspired by 1920’s Japanese glass negatives, Mitchell masters the art of life drawing and the aesthetic of the Orient with his elegantly drawn models bathed in bright light.
However, look closer and you will notice an extension of Mitchell’s cultural commentary as the model reads a Playboy magazine featuring a sexy blonde Western model in juxtaposition to the serenity of the Japanese life model.
Click here to view more of Gavin’s series for sale with ONGallery where they can be purchased framed or unframed.