Joan Mitchell

From the energetic, writhing forms of Garden Party, to the introverted mass of Untitled, 1992, this exhibition features a complex mixture of emotions; a mean feat considering there are only twelve works. All those displayed convey the very best of Mitchell’s Abstract Expressionist style, but it is with the two Cypress works that the most affecting sentiments are to be found.

First Cypress introduces us to the subject, immediately striking the viewer with melancholic, brooding tones. Straggling, wiry branches creep out from a forbidding mass, whilst threatening greenish tones are suggestive of the evening. Through a strong evocation of space, light and time, the viewer is led to consider this work not merely as a still life or landscape, but as an event; a situation that Mitchell felt compelled to translate onto canvas. This direct engagement with the viewer continues even as the melancholy dissipates on reaching Cypress. Spreading across the wall, the immense canvas echoes and reflects the natural light of the room it occupies. The blinding effect of the leaves is pertinently captured, with the silhouetted figures on the canvas sharing our experience, while also providing a point of departure from which one can navigate the mass of yellow leaves.

Mitchell turns to this device time and again, as while the abstract forms whirl across her works, there is always a counterweight to balance the viewer’s gaze. Rather than diminishing their expressive power, this allows one to become thoroughly and enjoyably immersed in Mitchell’s work, without fear of abandonment.