Fred Mitchell is a German-born American photographer working in Los Angeles. He holds a BFA and MFA in photography from the University of Alabama, Birmingham and University of Nevada at Las Vegas, respectively. Upon completion of his degrees he has worked as an adjunct professor, art director, and photographer all while maintaining his practice as a fine artist.
Fred regularly explores process & project based work, where he researches and explores topics organically while he constructs a body of work. Often, his projects weave multiple seemingly unrelated themes to create complex visual narratives with the intention of unique experiences to be gleaned upon multiple viewings.
He has received grants from the state of Alabama as well as from the city of Las Vegas and state of Nevada. His work has been featured in exhibitions in throughout North America as well as internationally most recently in Italy and Germany. His work is included in Noah Waldeck’s (Subjectively Objective) Observations in the Ordinary. In October of 2020 Yoffy Press will be publishing his first monograph, “You Can’t Go! All The Plants Are Gonna Die!” focusing on deceased plant material and failed relationships.
Southwestern Pedestrian
Southwestern Pedestrian is a meditation on the uncanny and sublime of the American high desert. This beautiful and otherworldly terrain is all at once a familiar and foreign landscape. This lonesome but crowded space is naturally bereft of suitable living conditions so it was manufactured to be inhabitable, thus creating a cognitive dissonance. This work explores that schism through juxtaposing constructed tableaus with the existing manmade environmental interventions. My practice utilizes observation, research, and construction to facilitate a dialog between these two types fabricated peculiarities. This visual discussion conjoins to make images of humor & regret, injury & absurdity, tangible & abstract and failure & achievement.
To view more of Fred Mitchell’s work please visit his website.