Artist Statement

Through a multidisciplinary approach the work explores and investigates the interconnected relationship of humans, the environment and other species. Seeking to examine and reveal the social, technological and spiritual constructs we employ as we interface with the organic and inorganic of our place and time, underpins the practice. Primarily through sculpture, land art, installation, drawing and mixed media, themes of equilibrium, symbiosis and time are continually present. Dichotomies-permanence/impermanence, care/disregard, extraction/replenishment- as part of the human condition are a common throughline, alongside reconsidering the notion of the human species as superior and in charge, rather than a mutualist symbiotic partner. The work is viewed through the lens that medium and material are a manifestation of concept, fostering new interactions with process, media and meaning, challenging the constraints of a singular approach. Abstraction combined with references to science, symbols and common materials provide a familiar connection inviting the viewer to further engage, explore and interact with the work.

Bio

Bill Mitchell is a multi-disciplinary artist whose sculptures, land installations and mixed media artworks have been exhibited in public spaces, galleries, and museums regionally and nationally. He is Gallery Director for Rountree Gallery in Platteville, WI a community run non-profit art center exhibiting artists from across the country. In 2022 he was appointed by Governor Evers to the Wisconsin Arts Board and chairs the Accessibility Committee. He lived and worked as an artist and landscape designer in Chicago until relocating to Grant County, WI in 2012, where he helped run an organic garlic farm with his wife Angie. With a passion for environmental design his woodworking company Readapted LLC produced sustainable garden furnishing for architects, designers, and builders for over a decade. Bill has taught design at Northern Illinois University and landscape design at Northwestern University and has been a presenter at numerous garden symposium. He received a BFA in 1989 and MFA in 1993 from Northern Illinois University.