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

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...

Stamp -X, Stamp -Y
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

John Houck’s multi-layered photographic compositions immortalize nostalgic objects from the artist’s childhood, manipulated in the studio and in post-production into unreal still-life arrangements...

Brent Sikkema – Visionary Art Dealer Of Jeffrey Gibson And Kara Walker Murdered
© » ARTLYST

Kara Walker

Brent Sikkema, the Manhattan art dealer renowned for representing artists such as Jeffrey Gibson and Kara Walker found dead The post Brent Sikkema – Visionary Art Dealer Of Jeffrey Gibson And Kara Walker Murdered appeared first on Artlyst ....

Human Quarry
© » KADIST

Leslie Shows

Human Quarry is a large work on paper by Leslie Shows made of a combination of acrylic paint and collage...

Untitled (Women)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

Untitled (Women) (2011) presents a startlingly succinct history of violently romanticized femininity...

Untitled (Set of Six Drawings)
© » KADIST

Adrian Villar Rojas

2012

Based on historical prophecies and fantasy, the artist creates apocalyptic scenarios that posit an enigmatic world plagued by social, political, and environmental upheaval...

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...

Sign series, #1, #2, #3
© » KADIST

Bjorn Copeland

2009

Sign #1 , Sign #2 , Sign #3 were included in “Found Object Assembly”, Copeland’s 2009 solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco...

Towhead n’Ganga enclosed in darkness, lorded over by the sexualized folded high priestless form
© » KADIST

Mike Kelley

1996

Towhead n’Ganga, enclosed in darkness, lorded over by the sexualized folded high priestless form reflects many of Kelley’s works, in both its compositional and semantic qualities...

21 Ke (21 Grams)
© » KADIST

Sun Xun

2010

Sun’s animated film 21 Ke (21 Grams) is based on the 1907 research by the American physician Dr...

New Fall Lineup
© » KADIST

Conrad Ruiz

2009

It may take a minute to recognize the background of New Fall Lineup – the colors are tweaked into a world of cartoon and candy, and it is covered by leaping energetic figures and flying squirrels...

The Last Post
© » KADIST

Shahzia Sikander

2010

The Last Post was inspired by Sikander’s ongoing interest in the colonial history of the sub-continent and the British opium trade with China...

Peg and Jon
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...

Itch
© » KADIST

Yang Guangnan

2011

Itch explores the relationship between technology and daily human experience with a motorized arm that extends from within the gallery’s wall, moving up and down while holding a projector that shows a desperately scratching pair of hands....