‘Lavish Vandalism’: the debut solo exhibition from Duke Mitchell

Lavish Vandalism, the debut solo exhibition from interdisciplinary artist Luke, aka Duke Mitchell – will be opening at View Art Gallery in Hotwells on September 23.

Mitchell is an emerging artist characterised for thoughtful, honest and richly layered work that brings together multiple forms, juxtaposing the historical with the imagined, personal themes with physical environments, and closely observed fine details with humour.

As a photographer, he captures a moment in time, but where his paintings are concerned, it’s a thoroughly different story.

“They are all fair game until they are sold”, says Mitchell, who describes his work as a reflection of many artists in one – just as we are all a bundle of different impulses.

Known as a gallery that champions new talent in Bristol’s flourishing art scene, View was drawn to Mitchell’s work as “an innovative artist who never stops re-thinking, re-imagining and re-working.

“The artist takes the viewer on an intellectual and emotional journey,” they say, “allowing the work to be appreciated on many levels.

Duke Mitchell: Untitled, from the solo exhibition Lavish Vandalism (2022) – photo: courtesy of the artist

“We can marvel at the clever use of art historical references or laugh at the satirical take on socio-political issues. We can also take pure aesthetic pleasure in the colourful imagery and admire the re-imagined us of discarded objects.”

The exhibition features multiple collections, but some of the key works are outlined here, with Mitchell’s own explanations:

Man on the Telephone

A decade in the making, this painting started life as a film still from Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo 66 (1998). Each component of the painting has its own backstory. It is therefore a collage of stories stitched together to form a single staged scene. A tattooed man sits naked speaking on the telephone surrounded by various possessions and a pile of empty beer bottles.

The Wardrobe Altarpiece

A two-headed royal adorns the doors, which when opened reveals two suspended plants in an overgrown garden with their roots in lemons. One of the only things salvaged by my parents from my childhood bedroom was the doors of my paint-splattered wardrobe. Re-worked as an altarpiece, there’s a nod to the idea that was brought to life in The Chronicles of Narnia whereby a wardrobe wasn’t only a place to hang clothes, but was the portal to somewhere else entirely. The inside panel is based on The Walk to the Paradise Garden by W. Eugene Smith.

Duke Mitchell: Wardrobe Altarpiece, from the solo exhibition Lavish Vandalism (2022) – photo: courtesy of the artist

The Garden Pentaptych

Formerly the painting which provided the background for the photographic portraits of academicians made during the Court Painter Residency at the Royal West of England Academy of Art in 2012. Now cut into five separate canvases, reworked as a pentaptych [pen-tap-tick] and updated for Lavish Vandalism, it looks to represent both the constant growing and dying flora (plants and flowers) and the theatre of fauna (animals) within a garden. When fully assembled it is an altarpiece to what one might call ‘gardening as method’.

Duke Mitchell: Panel 3 from The Garden Pentaptych, from the solo exhibition Lavish Vandalism (2022) – photo: courtesy of the artist

For Mitchell, the magnetism of Bristol as a city for artists is palpable. He recollects with fondness both the freedom of his first studio, shared with friends in a condemned tyre factory replete with water dripping from the ceiling and mushrooms growing out of the carpet, and his time at BV, with its hugely popular annual Open Studios weekend.

Now, he works out of a home studio, combining kitchen garden, workshop, gym and studio: “It’s the perfect environment for each discipline to melt into the next and my favourite way work so far”.

He has been hugely influenced by the sense of place that Bristol affords, not least for the growth of the street art movement that has driven a cultural shift in ideas about what where, and what, an artist is capable of – and how the perceived vandalism of the past can become the high art of the present day.

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As to speculation on what people might take away from his work, Mitchell is more reticent. Sitting down in conversation with View Art Gallery curator and owner Nick Waugh, he reflects: “I have no control over the taste or sensibilities of the viewer, nor should I.

“If we think of a spectrum from playful to serious, then one of my works could appear anywhere on that scale, just like our moods.

“My only intent is to work honestly and act compulsively. If someone connects with work made this way then I would describe that as a genuine connection.”

Duke Mitchell: Lavish Vandalism is at View Art Gallery from September 23-October 16. The gallery is open Friday-Sunday 10am-4pm, and other days by appointment. Follow @view_art_gallery and @dukeamitchell for further information.

All photos: Duke Mitchell; main photo shows ‘Man on the Telephone’

Read more: Emily Powell exhibition comes to Clifton gallery

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