FAMILIAR PICTURES
Image: Harriet Mitchell, Garlic and Onion, 2022, oil paint on panel, 15 x 20cm
HARRIET MITCHELL
07 - 17 April 2022 @ CCAS MANUKA
Familiar Pictures is a collection of 10 small portraits and a triptych of larger full-body portraits. Each painting is a reflection of every-day contemporary life, based on memories recorded in a journal. The journal entries are translated into candid portraits of friends and family inhabiting the mundane narratives of the day-to-day. In doing this the images become a combination of document and fiction. They are accounts of real lived experiences that have then been carefully curated to become constructed staged images. The paintings depict scenery ranging from everyday domesticity and moments of intense introspection. The smaller works are painted as ‘snapshots’ in time with a loose composition expressing the movement and briefness of the moment. The triptych has more emphasis on the theatricality of retelling a memory, with a classically staged composition, embellished with detail.
This body of work focuses on memory and re-imagining memories. Our perception of events usually revolves around interactions with others, and the face-to-face encounters that shape our personal histories.