Georgia Hillside © Tyler Mitchell. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Tyler Mitchell Dreaming in Real Time
Jack Shainman Gallery New York | 513 West 20th Street
September 9 to October 30, 2021
Dreaming in Real Time, on view a tour 20th Street gallery, is a new series by Mitchell that visualizes scenes of peace, solitude and belonging for Black people in the pastoral American South. During the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mitchell was unable to see his family in his native state of Georgia. The distance and isolation led him to start dreaming of home. When he was able to return, he created new images of subjects in the Atlanta-metro area that consider historic and contemporary notions of refuge, repose, and rootedness.
Works such as Nap and Connective Tissue hone in on intimate moments. Two pairs of feet softly and comfortably fall into each other, siblings tenderly embrace, and children jump on mattresses, while brothers wade calmly into the riverside. Mitchell also makes multiple references to the real and lived histories of redlining within Georgia that continue to this day, which both limit the mobility of Black people and actively suppress voting rights. In Georgia Hillside (Redlining) and Chalk, Mitchell’s hand is visible through his drawn demarcations on the land. Mitchell reimagines these historically divisive lines, which have become a subconscious part of Southern life, as potential pathways of navigation, connectivity, solace, and belonging.