Jason Mitcham (MFA Painting ‘05) is well on his way to becoming a world-renowned artist, with exhibitions being featured in North Carolina, New York and the Netherlands.
Although his work is being displayed around the world, he is most excited about his exhibit at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina. Beyond the Horizon consists of a video created from animated paintings and drawings, as well as live action footage shot during a visiting artist residency in Wisconsin. The project is exhibited in an installation format, which includes approximately 30 paintings and drawings alongside the projected video.
“The exhibition at the Cameron Museum has offered new insight into how my work, which now bridges a variety of media, can all function together in a space,” Mitcham said. “This has been really helpful for envisioning future directions my work might take.”
Mitcham’s upbringing in North Carolina adds to his gratefulness for having his work showcased in Wilmington. His solo exhibition from 2015, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, which he calls a “milestone in his practice,” was recently added to the permanent collection in the North Carolina Museum of Art. The piece is an animation created from a single oil painting, which served as the music video for a song by the Avett Brothers.
“Growing up in North Carolina, this was the equivalent of going to The Met for us, and I was really proud to have been able to show there,” Mitcham said.
The artist’s graduate education at the University of Florida laid the groundwork for the quality of his current exhibitions. Mitcham began experimenting with stop-motion animation after he felt the paintings in one of his previous solo exhibitions were “missing something.”
“Being able to have this criticality of my own work, even after all the time I had spent working towards that series and exhibition was what led to the next step in my practice,” Mitcham said. “I think grad school in UF laid the groundwork for that.”
Beyond the Horizon premiered at Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC on February 4 and will be showcased there until July 9, 2017.
Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise: https://vimeo.com/23238876
Learn more about Mitcham at www.jasonmitcham.com.
