Gordon Mitchell was born in 1952 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He embarked on a career in teaching until becoming a full-time painter in 1989.
A prolific painter, Mitchell describes himself as an 'abstract expressionist'. Often labelled a surrealist, though he thinks not, he certainly wants his work to be thought-provoking. Inspiration can be a group of words, a topical news story, but more usually it's a visual pun that his pictures develop out of.
Routine and his own family - rather than the one he came from - have always meant much to him. He works hard and does not sleep much. He likes an intensive, regular, daily eight hours in his studio. Sculpture, for which he also won prizes at College, continues its appeal; but for Mitchell, it involves a process that takes too long whereas to him, painting is an immediate form of expression - often he will not know what he will put on his canvas until he takes up his brush.
Mitchell is an elected Member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour (1997), the Royal Glasgow Institute (1998) and the Royal Scottish Academy (2005).
Awards include:
RSA - Student Prize; EIS Purchase Prize; City Arts Centre Open Scottish Competition; RSW - Sir William Gillies Award; SAAC - Dunfermline Building Society Award; Scottish Provident Award; Whyte & MacKay Award; RGI - Scottish Amicable Prize; Royal Bank of Scotland Award; RSA - John Murray Thompson Award; RSA - Maude Gemmel Hutchison Prize; Glasgow Mayfest - Paper Boat Award
Solo Exhibitions include:
1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 Roger Bilcliffe Fine Art, Glasgow
1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006 Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
2002, 2004, 2006 Albemarle Gallery, London
2008 Portland Gallery, London
2010 Portland Gallery, London
2012 Portland Gallery
Collections include:
Alliance & Leicster Building Society, Edinburgh
Arthur Andersen
Diageo plc
Distillers Co. plc
Edinburgh College of Art
Francos Restaurant, London
Kansas City Art Institute
Macfarlane Group plc
National Westminster Bank
Paisley Art Institute
Pears Soap
Royal Bank of Scotland
Scottish Arts Council
Scottish Brewers Ltd
The Knesset, Israel
University of Edinburgh
Welcome Inns
Whyte & Mackay Group
William Teacher & Sons
