Tiyana Mitchell is an American/ Jordanian artist. Having lived in various places around the world, between New York, Arizona, California, Jordan, and growing up in Cyprus, her work is informed by the complexity of identity. Mitchell is currently based in London where she is working towards her Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art. Mitchell holds a dual degree from Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College, in Fine Arts and History, a combination of which provides the groundwork to her painting practice. She is interested in the archival research and history which is built upon in her painting which draws from her experience working with her family’s archive.
Artist Statement
My work considers the concepts of anonymity and memory. In either large or small scale oil paintings on linen, the work confronts these ideas, drawing one in and simultaneously placing a barrier between what is showcased. The paintings individually explore archival images or my own photography. I place the focus not on the central point of the initial image, rather looking towards what is left out and in the background. It creates a feeling of peering into something that shouldn’t be seen, a sense of discomfort in being on the outside while standing in the centre.
The archival paintings are based on my grandfather’s photographic archive between the 1920’s-1970’s based primarily in the Middle East and Europe. The photos peak into the social and political lives of people of the time some being politicians and prominent figures, including my great grandfather who was the District Commissioner of Jerusalem in the 1940’s during British Mandated government and Foreign Minister of Jordan in the late 40’s and 50’s. The importance of working with these albums are not the images itself or the history which they showcase, but rather the fact that these albums are tangible.
The feeling of the uncanny which I grapple with in each of the paintings highlights my own relationship to the figures I paint. The process removes the original from the history it is bound to, instead confusing/juxtaposing it with an image of today. A push and pull between the archival and the new, the reproduction and the original, the seen and the unseen, and the understood and concealed. They become my own understanding of a memory that is not my own. The paintings are visual representations for fragmented memory, one that is pieced together with pieces that don’t belong.