The Carpenter

2012 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

7.25H x 11.25W x 6.25D inches

Jeffry Mitchell


Poised with tool in hand, Jeffry Mitchell’s The Carpenter (2012) reaches forward, toward his workbench. It is difficult to tell whether the work represents just any carpenter or Christ, the most famous member of the profession and the subject of innumerable parables and artworks. His stilted pose is not too Messianic; drips of ochre glaze render his handiwork and hammer equally soft. Woodshop, table, man, and floor are lacquered together, spilling into one another and freezing the protagonist vulnerably in place.


The Seattle-based sculptor Jeffry Mitchell creates cartoonlike creatures from low-fire earthenware. Their sympathetic expressions and modest size, combined with Mitchell’s style of globular, additive assembly, makes them seem accessible and charming, as if they want to be held. They are reminiscent of characters from Peanuts or The Flintstones , but they also draw on art historical tropes as potent and ancient as sex and religion. Beneath their unassuming facades they harbor a generous heap of musing, tongue-in-cheek critique.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Abstract Versus Figurative Art, » Animals, » Biomorphic, » Ceramic  
» see more

Domes, #1
© » KADIST

Judy Chicago

1969

Domes #1 represents a significant moment in Chicago’s career when her art began to change from a New York-influenced Abstract Expressionist style to one that reflected the pop-inflected art being made in Los Angeles...

Absentia
© » KADIST

Tony Oursler

2012

Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...

Untitled #242, 104, 975 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 18 colors
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Untitled #242 is part of Houck’s Aggregates Series, which uses digital tools to manipulate chosen sets and pairs of colors, creating colorful index sheets, bathed in colors and lines...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Man and Pet
© » KADIST

Jeffry Mitchell

2012

In Man and Pet (2012), two benign ceramic figures smile sweetly upward...

Domes, #1
© » KADIST

Judy Chicago

1969

Domes #1 represents a significant moment in Chicago’s career when her art began to change from a New York-influenced Abstract Expressionist style to one that reflected the pop-inflected art being made in Los Angeles...

Absentia
© » KADIST

Tony Oursler

2012

Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...

Mythological Time
© » KADIST

Sun Xun

2016

Sun Xun’s lushly illustrated, dynamic short film Mythological Time is a dreamy chronicle of rapacious industrial development, the mythical qualities of state propaganda, and the constancy of change, as experienced by an unnamed coal mining town...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Untitled (Bird and Eyes)
© » KADIST

Clare Rojas

2008

Rojas’s two pieces in the Kadist Collection— Untitled (four-legged…) and Untitled (Bird’s Eyes) —are representative of her pictorial style which uses bold colorful blocks of paint and female and animal characters...

The Making of Monster
© » KADIST

Douglas Gordon

1996

In Monster (1996-97), the artist’s face becomes grotesque through the application of strips of transparent adhesive tape, typical of Gordon’s performance-based films that often depict his own body in action...

Just Stop Oil Activists Smash Glass On Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus
© » ARTLYST

Just Stop Oil activists have smashed the glass covering the Rokeby Venus, located in London's National Gallery...

Action-Packed Winners of the 2023 Red Bull Illume Image Quest
© » MODERN MET PHOTOGRAPHY

Action-Packed Winners of the 2023 Red Bull Illume Awards Home / Photography / Photo Contest Action-Packed Winners of the 2023 Red Bull Illume Image Quest By Jessica Stewart on December 5, 2023 Overall Winner & Winner, Innovation by MPB, Photographer: © Krystle Wright / Red Bull Illume, Athlete: Angela VanWiemeersch, Location: Long Canyon, UT, United States “Turns out by slowing down life and embracing boredom again into my life, my dreams have come back that ignite new passion projects...

Other works by: » Jeffry Mitchell  
» see more

Man and Pet
© » KADIST

Jeffry Mitchell

2012

In Man and Pet (2012), two benign ceramic figures smile sweetly upward...

The Swimmer
© » KADIST

Jeffry Mitchell

2012

Though the title might suggest an Adonis, Jeffry Mitchell’s The Swimmer (2012) is a squat, jolly man with a protuberant belly...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

John Sainsbury, Supermarket Magnate Who Transformed London’s Museums, Dies at 94 - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

He and his brothers $35 million toward the building of a wing at the National Gallery....

Lars Ulrich on Making Whiskey, Collecting Art and His Favourite Metallica Imagery - via Maxim
© » LARRY'S LIST

The Metallica drummer also revealed his favorite music of 2018 and "the best action movie of the year by far."...

Collector Bernard Lumpkin on How to Buy Black Contemporary Art Ethically - via artnet news
© » LARRY'S LIST

On the occasion of the release of the book Young, Gifted, and Black, the collector explains his philosophy about art and patronage....

Akram Zaatari
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari talks about the influence of the Arab Image Foundation and the images of Hashem El Madani in his work...