Joan Mitchell’s work straddles the line between abstract expressionism and landscape more than almost anyone else. Her paintings, many of them quite large, create a sense of place of their own while referencing our collective sense of land and the space surrounding us.
On a personal level, Mitchell–in spite of all the horrific stories of her bad behavior and general bad assedness–holds a poignant place in my heart. She and Richard Diebenkorn were primary influences on me while I was in art school. When I first moved to New York City from the west coast, seeing her work in the flesh was a revelation to me.
Jane Livingston, in her catalogue essay, speaks of Mitchell’s “strange inarticulateness” when it came to talking about her work. “She kept insisting that feeling a place, transforming a memory, recording something specifically recalled from experience, with all its intense light and joy and perhaps anguish, was what she was doing. She seemed to assume that everyone would understand what she meant.” Mitchell’s rhetoric may seem imprecise, but it speaks to the very distance that abstraction establishes between the painting and the subject, and reflects the multiplicity or blurring of intentions around which her work is structured. In Mitchell’s hands, landscape elements, however stylized, can convey feeling, form, memory and a depiction simultaneously.
Richard Kalina, Art in America
About Joan Mitchell, Brice Marden once admiringly remarked, “She could make yellow look heavy.”
I enjoy the stories of how badly behaved she was. She was coming from an era before being a jerk in the style of Jonathan Franzen was a media savvy ploy, so we can assume she was the genuine article. But I didn’t know till now that she was also supposed to have been inarticulate. I love it: meaner than a yard dog, and couldn’t talk on demand either. This means she’s worth about 100,000 charming and glib painters working now whom we could list.
I have known my share of rude, angry tongue-tied painters, and while I do not consider it a substitute for talent, the art world has gotten to the point where I do consider it refreshing.
Refreshing perspective as always Elatia. There is a documentary, shot just before her death, that moves slowly in and out of her studio. You feel as if the camera is allowing you to just hang out with her. She was one crusty dame, but yes, she did make yellow look heavy. And all the better for it.
In this reproduction you have provided, Mitchell has neatly inversed the tonal but also temperature natures of red and yellow – the yellow advances so positively, while the red demurely sits back and allows yellow power. a truly delicious understanding of colour!