Artwork copyright Jeffry Mitchell. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2018.

Beastiary: Rabbit, 1994

Jeffry Mitchell
(American, born 1958)

Location: Washington State Arts Commission, Olympia

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Beastiary: Rabbit is a print by artist Jeffry Mitchell. It is part of his body of work featuring familiar animals shown in an old-fashioned and sentimental style. Combining irony and sincerity, these pieces point to the fragility of the natural world. Mitchell notes that these pieces show "the human habit of projecting human traits onto animals."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Kent School District.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Northwest artist Jeffry Mitchell calls himself a gay folk artist. He creates playful and joyous ceramic artworks and installations, as well as prints and drawings. His art explores ideas of gender, spirituality, vulnerability, and self-discovery. The artworks are relatable to our shared human experience -- they often look handmade and use familiar imagery such as animals and flowers. Clay is also a material that most of us have used in grade school or at some other time.

Jeffry Mitchell earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1980) in painting from the University of Dallas. He moved to Japan to teach English and stayed for three years, apprenticing with a traditional production potter and studying calligraphy. In 1988, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. In 2012, the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle organized a retrospective exhibition "Like a Valentine: The Art of Jeffry Mitchell".