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 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 draw from her experience working with her families 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. The photos delve into the social and political lives of those involved in the issues of Palestine/Israel and its establishment, that of which are my family members including and most prominently my great grandfather who was the District Commissioner of Jerusalem in the 1940’s and highest ranking Arab official in the British Mandated government. 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. Many albums from the region no longer exist, and thus maintaining the integrity of the original becomes ever more important.
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. The paintings become visual representations for fragmented memory, one that is pieced together with pieces that don’t belong.