Sunflowers

Balanced on fragile stalks, the sunflower is a pure concentration of mass and color that forces its way upwards to bloom in splendour, only to droop and wilt so visibly as to almost express the sadness of its mortality. This oddly human quality was exactly what Mitchell saw in the flowers, treating them ‘like people’ and returning to them over 40 years. The title of her works were decided after they were painted, drawing on the feelings and states she was in during their production. So, the Sunflower series are made in momnts of pride and fradility, their frenetic confident brushstrokes a mask for the delicateness of spirit. “If I see a sunflower drooping, I can droop with it”, she explained, “and I draw it, and feel it until its death”.