The Edge of Modern.
The Edge of Modern speaks to the complex transition happening now in our rural communities, where old ways of life persist even while those making a living off the land increasingly embrace technology and modern methods. The title also refers to the style of the painting, where Mitchell’s thrillingly concise realism nearly becomes abstraction. Eliminate any brushstroke, and the painting might dissolve into a collage of geometric shapes.
Edge of Modern, by Dean Mitchell.
But the barn and the land do not dissolve. They remain. They persist. They occupy space - on the canvas and in our consciousness. The lavender horizon, replete with subtle, sweeping brush strokes, sweeps our eye from left to right in a deepening twilight, always returning to the shadowing shape that sits solidly on the land. Weathered siding, a roofline that has endured many seasons, a glint of last light on the cupola. In the distance, a vanishing windbreak, planted generations ago by settlers who dared to accept the challenge of eking out a living on this vast landscape. The air is loud with silence.
When I view Dean Mitchell’s masterful paintings, I hear echoes of the voices of John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Jack Kerouac, even Thoreau. These authors write of solitude, of hardship, of the power of vision that leads us inexorably onward.
As in all of Mitchell’s work, the underlying humanity is revealed. With a master’s touch, he invites us in and asks challenging questions. Where have we come from and where are we going. The past echoes as the future is foretold.
