Tyler Mitchell goes again to nature in new solo present
Tyler Mitchell has come a long way from his childhood in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. Contrary to the typical narrative of creatives, his household wasn’t filled with artists. “Nobody in my family was involved in art or anything creative. Everything was fairly practical,” he told CR in an interview in 2020.
One thing that growing up in a predominantly white area of the American south did for Mitchell, however, was force him to think about his own Blackness and relationship with the world around him. It’s a theme that he has carried throughout the development of his practice, presenting a utopian vision of Black beauty, desire, and belonging.
Cage, 2022 © Tyler Mitchell. All images courtesy the artist; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; and Gagosian
Now 27, the photographer and filmmaker’s arrival on the world stage came in the form of his Vogue photoshoot with Beyoncé in 2018, which made him the first Black photographer in the magazine’s 125-year history to shoot the cover, as well as one of the youngest ever.
Since then, Mitchell has worked on ground-breaking exhibitions, high profile commercial commissions and the release of his debut monograph. For his latest project, he is going back to his roots for his first solo show at London’s Gagosian – a gallery known for exhibiting some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Chrysalis, 2022 © Tyler Mitchell
Titled Chrysalis, the show visually taps into the history of Black life in the American south. The images focus on Black figures and the landscapes they inhabit, typically set in staged and surreal environments.
In a photograph that shares its title with the exhibition, a young man sleeps on a blanket-covered bed, within the protective cocoon of a mosquito net. In another, a boy on a tyre swing is suspended above the surface of a lake, frozen in perfect equilibrium.
Tenderly, 2022 © Tyler Mitchell
Mitchell also uses land, water, and sky – appearing in both natural and artificial forms – as symbols throughout the series. One image depicts a woman posing before a painted backdrop of a tranquil garden, surrounded by a subtly threatening bore of white picket fence, while another shows the silent remnants of muddy footprints.
“Collectively, these moments become figments of an imaginative psychic state of being,” says Mitchell in a statement about the show. “One in which radiance, resistance, restraint, comfort, and full human agency exist.”
A Glint of Possibility, 2022, © Tyler Mitchell
Chrysalis is on display at Gagosian, Davies Street, London until November 12; tylermitchell.co