Films
Florence Derieux introduces Joan Mitchell’s ‘Composition’
- 11 June 2018
Art Basel 14 – 17 Jun 2018 All images © Joan Mitchell Foundation
Director of Exhibitions Florence Derieux introduces this stunning example from Mitchell's acclaimed ‘Sunflower’ series included in Hauser & Wirth’s presentation at Art Basel 2018. At once immediate and intentional, these paintings devour the viewer exploding with substantial shocks of yellow and gold, cradled by expanses of white and complemented by a panoply of hues.
'Sunflowers are something I feel very intensely. They look so wonderful when they are young and they are so very moving when they are dying.’ – Joan Mitchell
With the poetic inflection that Joan Mitchell’s paintings so often inspire, Phillip Larratt-Smith wrote: ‘Mitchell's sunflowers are evocations, memories of an unrepeatable moment… The sunflower itself is left behind, consumed in her gestural brush¬work: the image appears as if pulled through her body, and the yellows and oranges are luminous, transformed almost into pure light, pure object-feeling.’