Anthony Mitri, photo courtesy of the artist
Anthony Mitri's meticulous, life-like charcoal drawings, executed with exceptional patience and skill, include portrayals of the French countryside, urban Paris and New York City, subjects drawn from in and around his home town of Cleveland, Ohio, as well as other, diverse subject matter. Each charcoal is the representation of a personal, emotional experience bound to the location depicted.
Photographs, which Mitri takes at each location, help him recall his time spent in such places. These images also serve as guidelines, enabling him to outline the compositional elements of his subjects by way of an under-drawing, after which lighting and the creation of an appropriate mood become his primary focus.
More than photographs, however, Mitri’s own indelible memories of each location serve as his primary source material. This could include certain sounds and smells, as well as all the related circumstances in his life which colored his perceptions and influenced his emotions at that particular time and place.
The artist has said that “The experience of having been there is crucial to these pictures; the process of rendering a drawing becomes an extended moment of memory, the finished piece, a memoir in charcoal”. In describing his feelings about the work, Mitri quotes the poet William Wordsworth who wrote of an “emotion recollected in tranquility”.
Mitri attended the Cooper School of Art in Cleveland, Ohio and went on to the Athenaeum School of Fine Art in La Jolla, California. Since then he has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, Nashville, and in Deauville, France. Forum Gallery has held two, one-person exhibitions of Mitri's work (2007 and 2013). His work has been included in countless group exhibitions and art fairs, examples of which can be found in the permanent collection of the The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, as well as numerous private collections throughout the United States and Europe. He is the recipient of two Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grants (2010 and 2013), two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants (2006 and 2013), and is included in the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grantee Image Collection.
Anthony Mitri currently lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio and is represented by Forum Gallery.
Artist Statement
After working in various color media for many years, I began working primarily in charcoal in a realistic style in early 2002. I have found traditional color media to distract from the visual effects I desire and am able to achieve with charcoal.
With regard to choice of subject matter for the drawings, my thoughts have begun transitioning away from a solely realistic, contemporary treatment of cityscape, landscape, and still life toward experimenting, as well, with abstraction of these same subjects.
Working from on-site photographs I have taken of a given subject is crucial to the artwork. In addition to providing reference for underdrawings, these pictures preserve a collection of visual, as well as circumstantial, life memories which help inform reconstruction of the subject matter in charcoal. A lengthy, meticulous, rendering process affords time to deeply explore my initial concept for a piece. This process also provides scope for the spontaneous, sometimes unexpected development of new directions a piece in progress may suggest taking toward completion. In the end, producing a drawing represents for me a sort of extended moment of memory; the finished piece: a memoir in charcoal.
I find a quiet escape in these uninhabited, two-dimensional spaces. No specific narrative is implied, leaving the viewer free to infer meaning or simply rest in its absence.