9/7: Joan Mitchell

“What is it with these smears of color? What, are they supposed to be something? C’mon, I could do that!”

These are the most commonly uttered phrases—mentally or otherwise—while standing in front of an Abstract Expressionist painting.

Abstract Expressionism is known for enormous canvases covered with giant swaths of color. Sweeping brushstrokes violently crash into each other making what looks like a big mess– which it is. BUT: This post-World War II art movement solidified New York as the new center of the international art world, and fundamentally shifted the art of painting.

Artists in this tradition applied paint gesturally in a dynamic and spontaneous process of creation. Straight from the subconscious, the painter unloaded a wealth of emotions on the canvas. Think Jackson Pollock.

However, the spontaneity of this process was also stylistic. Many Abstract Expressionist paintings are made to look like they were created in a flurry of energy when, in fact, they took months of painstaking, deliberate work.

Midwest artist Joan Mitchell (1926-1992) exemplifies this counter intuitive process. She was one of the few women to excel in the movement, and she distinguished herself from her colleagues with a lively color palette and calculated compositions.

Her “Untitled (1959-1960)” work from 1959 is a frantic collection of rapid, horizontal brushstrokes of blue, orange, rose and sienna. Thin squiggles of greens, reds, and shades of blue dance on top and entangle themselves within the wider bands of color.

Mitchell painted at a purposeful distance from her canvases, carefully planning her next move. Many of her paintings were inspired by memories of landscapes and cityscapes of the American Midwest. Although works like “Untitled” give no obvious leads, the viewer is left to revel in the colors, allowing them to slowly take the form of remote places recalled through emotions that can only be described by paint.

Joan Mitchell’s “Untitled” can be seen at the Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City in their current exhibit The Abstract Autograph, February 25 – November 20, 2011.

—Lindsey Herkommer