Mitch Mitchell at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

Only a few more days remain to soak in the depth of Mitch Mitchell’s I Will Meet You In The Sun at the Art Gallery Of Nova Scotia. His sculptural works are spotted throughout the open space like objects abandoned in an industrial complex. Chief curator Sarah Fillmore refers to them as little dropped memories. Everything is intentional. Each imitation of disarray is formed from a number of delicately placed and meticulously crafted elements.



Mitch Mitchell, Oppenheimer, 2016, wood, fire (photo: Steve Farmer)

Predominantly trained as a print maker, Mitchell’s work makes many references to print media and its history. Charred coal blocks tumble out from a copper pail in the centre of the space. Every block surface is carved with a semitone pattern and painted black with India ink. The pail is hand forged from a copper plate.

I Will Meet You In The Sun honours the trauma Mitchell’s grandfather carried silently as the first soldier to witness the bomb dropping on Hiroshima: a tiny blip on his radar screen. Fillmore intuits that the artist has inherited the bodily memory of that trauma. He uses artistic labour to “work the devil out” and articulate to his audience a family history marred in the complexity of war and the silent strength of secrets.

In a large video projection, rust runs through flour and water as hands slowly gather a mess of ingredients into a lustrous, inedible red ball of dough. The audio is slightly offset. The hands are detached from any body, they instruct through action how to make bread from metal, how to feed the body with that which corrodes.

Domesticity, industry, and war are kneaded together in this weighted, but not dark, exhibition. Mitchell has crafted a beautiful visual language to convey a personal story of lives lived amidst industrial scale destruction.


Art Gallery Of Nova Scotia: http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/
Mitch Mitchell: I Will Meet You in the Sun continues until June 5.


Anna Taylor is an artist, crafter, and organizer sitting on the board of the Halifax Crafters Society. She is Akimblog’s Halifax correspondent and can be followed on Twitter @TaylorMadeGoods.