Looking at America
Dean Mitchell explores his views of America in a new exhibition at the Albany Art Museum in Georgia.
Now open at the Albany Museum of Art in Albany, Georgia, is Looking at America and Painting How I Want, What I Want and How I See It. The exhibition will feature the work of Dean Mitchell, the prominent Florida painter who has won countless awards at both Western and contemporary art shows around the country. Known for his watercolor works, the exhibition will also feature Mitchell’s acrylic paintings.
“I’m looking for freedom regardless of painting styles and labels imposed on artists in regards to race and ethnic origins,” Mitchell says, “total freedom to explore my full potential as an artist.”
“His poetic urban and rural scenes are rich in tone, but vibrate with the desolation of so much of America’s landscapes,” says curator Didi Dunphy. “Beautifully rendered, deprived neighborhoods and structures— populated by an occasional figure in these vacant environs—remind us of diminishing humanity.”
Dunphy adds that Mitchell’s own story is a featured element within the exhibition. “An African American man growing up in a depressed small city during the civil rights movement of the ’60s and ’70s with the vision of being a fine artist was not the common path. He speaks of his grandmother pushing him to not waver in his pursuit, encouraging him to attend his art studies…since then, his work has been collected by many prestigious museums and has received numerous accolades, including meeting the Obamas and being considered as a portrait artist for the 44th president…”
The exhibition continues through March 29. For more information visit www.albanymuseum.com.