Mike Mitchell
Based in Austin, Texas, Mike Mitchell is an artist and illustrator primarily known for his small-scale giclee prints, original paintings and limited edition figures. Widely collected series include his Food Dudes, Fat Birds, and Just Like Us, three separate series of playful illustrations which are produced and released on a regular basis through the artist's own online store. Mitchell is also known for his one-of-a-kind "Bastards", torn prints reassembled into new compositions with tops and bottoms that mostly align but don't completely match.
Mitchell's first entered the public sphere in early 2010 with the release of his "I'm With Coco" poster for Conan O'Brien, The following year, Mitchell appeared in several gallery exhibitions that further cemented his reputation as a master of the pop-culture genre, including exhibitions at Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco, Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, and Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra. That year, Mitchell also introduced the first prints in his SUPER series, featuring iconic personalities reimagined through a superhero motif.
In 2012 the artist debuted his popular "Fat Birds" series, a run of ornithological illustrations resembling an adorably absurdist Audubon, this was followed up in 2013 with the artist's "Portraits" series, many of which debuted in an exhibition at Mondo Gallery in Austin. In that series, the artist depicts pop culture characters at a side view against a monochromatic background to create an new contemporary trope on pop art portraiture. Soon after, half a dozen perpetually running and smiling Food Dudes were also produced in 2014. During this time Mitchell further developed his "Skully" character, an adorable memento mori found in both pop culture and fine art settings.
Mitchell saw continued success with his various print series though in 2019 when upendend his known repertoire by debuting three new original acrylic and oil paintings at Takashi Murakami's ComplexCon in Long Beach, CA.
An exploration into the digital space two years later with a series of self published and high succesful NFT followed, as well as a trailblazing series of NFTs produced with contemporaries Shepard Fairey, Tristan Eaton and Michael Reeder.
In 2022 the artist debuted his very first vinyl figure with Harman Projects at DesignerCon in Anaheim, CA.
