Mono no aware: Photography by Leigh Mitchell
October in the Benson Campus Galleries at Greenville Technical College
Event Types: Visual Arts
Oct 7, 2024 9:00 AM — Oct 18, 2024 2:00 PM
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Benson Campus Galleries Greenville Technical College
864 250-3051
[email protected]https://www.gvltec.edu/academics_learning/arts-sciences/visual_arts/index.htmlhttps://www.instagram.com/greenvilletech_dva/https://www.facebook.com/GreenvilleTechDVADetails
Fall is a season of contrasts. The days begin with a chill, foretelling the coming winter, then closing with an afternoon of summer heat. We sweater-up in the AM to then shed a layer or two by lunch. We notice the trees are still green, but that green is dull, faded, browning on the edges, ready for winter rest. Mitchell’s photographs celebrate this seasonal contrast, the natural cycles of birth and death. Her title, Mono no aware, a Japanese phrase meaning “beauty tinged with sadness.” Mitchell states, “More specifically it refers to the bittersweet awareness that all existence is ephemeral, and every moment of life is short lived.” Nature’s ephemeral existence is not only the seasonal cycle but also the human sourced destruction of the natural cycle. Mitchell’s images of fall as beauty tinged with sadness conjure feelings … “of impending loss”…“feelings of vulnerability, loss, loneliness, precariousness and foreboding.”
Technically Mitchell often employs a Holga camera to record her 30+ landscapes. The Holga is a cheap, imperfect plastic camera with very limited control and range. It is plagued with light leaks and imprecise outcomes. The Holga, in many ways, mimics our imperfect, short sighted way of seeing. It is a metaphor for humans attempted dominion over the natural world with little appreciation or understanding of the long-range outcomes of our interventions. Choosing to embrace the Holga as an instrument producing imperfect but visionary images deepens the meaning of Mitchell’s exhibition.
Mitchell elaborates “Another translation for ‘mono no aware’ is ‘a sensitivity to things,’ or noticing, identifying with, and having appreciation for things. As a result of this sensitivity, a subtle ache accompanies the awareness that all things inevitably change form or come to an end. The transience of nature/of life/of reality makes it both haunting and precious.”
Leigh Mitchell is an artist/educator. Mitchell holds a Master’s Degree in Studio Art from Western Carolina University. Her work has been exhibited at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO; the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY; The Asheville Art Museum; and most recently, in Greenville, SC at The SE Center for Photography, and at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts. Visit www.leighkendramitchell.com for more information. Mono no aware is a welcome to and introduction of Mitchell, as a newly installed full-time photography instructor, in the Department of Visual Art.
"Mono no aware: Leigh Mitchell Photography" is on view September 30 through October 18
in Greenville Technical College’s Benson Campus Galleries, 2522 Locust Hill Road, Monday – Thursday, 9am - 5pm and Friday, 9am - 2pm. The public is welcome. Visit www.gvltec.edu/dva for more information call Pat Owens, Gallery Assistant at 864 250-3051 or email Fleming Markel, Gallery Director at [email protected].
