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:



Other related works, blended automatically

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...

Choke
© » KADIST

Jennifer Locke

2005

Choke documents the artist filming a wrestler “choking out” his teammate until he is unconscious...

Swimming in Rivers of Glue
© » KADIST

Julieta Aranda

2016

The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...

Rocket
© » KADIST

Jeffrey Vallance

1978

Vallance’s Rocket is a vibrant picture in which masses of color and collage coalesce into a central vehicle, yet the whole surface seems lit with the roar of space travel...

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...

Untitled (Men)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

In the series Horizons (2010), Lipps uses appropriation to riff on Modernism’s fascination with abstract form...

Baby Shoes, Never Worn
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Baby Shoes, Never Worn is part of photographer John Houck’s series of restrained still-life photographs capturing objects from his childhood...

From the series Las Mariposas Eternas (the Eternal Butterflies)
© » KADIST

Adrian Villar Rojas

2010

The two drawings in the Kadist Collection are part of a larger series entitled Las Mariposas Eternas (The Eternal Butterflies)...

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 ....

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...

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....

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...

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 #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...