Robert J. Mitchell

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Robert J. Mitchell (born 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an artist, photographer, and sculptor. Mitchell studied at the University of Chicago (MFA 1991) and in Atlanta (Art Institute of Atlanta; Atlanta College of Art). Mitchell combines photographs with carefully selected objects. These combinations create powerful poetic narratives concerning the poor and the dispossessed. Bringing a poetic sensibility to bear upon his art allows the viewer to attend to both the political meaning of the images and their visual sensuality––the value of light, the arrangement of forms, the emotional pull of things. The intellectual strength of his work resides at this intersection of the real and the imagined. In recent years, Mitchell's interest in the politics of the everyday has turned to questioning abuses of power more broadly, both nationally (slavery; masculine iconography) and internationally (colonialism; propaganda).

Robert Mitchell has had solo exhibitions in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Louisville. He is currently represented by Zephyr Gallery, the oldest cooperative gallery in the lower Ohio River valley region.