Kate Davison Mitchell

San Francisco, CA

Kate Mitchell's painting practice involves mark-making and layering, resulting in intimate close-ups of what is felt in the body. Working in acrylic on wood panels and canvas, Kate's small scale paintings are saturated and dense surfaces built slowly over time. It's in the exploration of the physicality of painting itself that the abstract images become something tangible. A place in time. Through layers of gesture and color, a conversation develops that has a life of its own. A story to tell. The beauty and the energy of the Bay Area has been Kate's muse and influence from a young age. It was an encounter with a branch of a wind-blown cypress tree on the edge of the Point Reyes coast that opened Kate's mind and changed her approach to her subject matter. The tree's offering shifted Kate's perspective from feeling outside of herself, to feeling her kinship with the natural world. Moving away from pure abstraction, branches and roots of trees have become key visual elements in her work.