Julian Gordon Mitchell

‘My paintings inhabit a quiet, in-between space—where memory, dream, and imagination overlap. The figures often appear suspended in time, absorbed in some private ritual or moment of pause. I’m drawn to the kind of imagery that resists easy interpretation: scenes that seem familiar but evade explanation, as though glimpsed in passing from the edge of consciousness.

There’s often a stillness, even a strangeness, in the way things are arranged. Objects appear without function, people without roles. In that silence, I’m interested in the tension between presence and absence, intimacy and detachment, meaning and its withdrawal. Sometimes a subtle humor emerges—dry, deadpan, or absurd—but it tends to arrive quietly, without demanding attention.

Rather than offering narratives, I’m more interested in evocation—setting the stage for the viewer’s own projections. I think of painting not as a statement, but as a kind of listening. The image, once made, starts to suggest things I didn’t consciously put there.

I paint slowly. What matters is the mood—the sense that something is slightly off, or just about to happen. I want the viewer to feel that they’ve entered a place with its own rules, however gently they’re enforced.’