Sophia Kim – Looking Outward 06 – Sec C

As a member of the American abstract expressionist movement, Joan Mitchell was one of the few female artists of this movement to gain acclaim for her work. In this painting “Ici,” Mitchell used oil paint to show emotion through color, brush stroke, and movement. I can sense a variety of emotions through the random brush strokes, specifically through angles and the amount of pressure on the brush.

Playing sports as a child, Mitchell took her passion for diving and skating into her works. I believe her athleticism led her to have no restrictions in her art. For example, in all her pieces, especially in “Ici,” she does not use rulers, but uses her movements to create. She embraced the randomness and flexibility of the paint brush to create symbolic works of art. I really admire “Ici” the most out of all her paintings, because she balances the use of saturated and desaturated colors perfectly. Also, I love how random Mitchell’s lines and shapes are in this painting, which oddly harmonize together.