Dean Mitchell is a watercolor artist who grew up in the small town of Quincy, Florida during the 60s and 70s. As a young African American, he faced many obstacles. Inspired by his grandmother who raised him, Dean has become a voice for those who live in poverty and inequity. When I was a kid, I experienced racism very early on. And it's an irony that I used to pray if I could do anything with my work, it would help us heal those wounds of racism and segregation. A lot of these things have shaped my sensibility about what I do. So a lot of it is not just because I think it's interesting in terms of light and this not in shadow, which does interest me. But the main overture about the work is about poverty and marginalization of people and how those spaces affect our whole sense of self and a space. That's been just a part of who I am. This art thing, however you want to describe it, is a huge part of my life. And so I want it to mean something. If I can change the world in any way, it would be to help break down certain social constructs that I think are detrimental to us as human beings. And there are plenty of them. My name is Matt Cutter. I'm with Cutter and Cutter Fine Art in St. Augustine, Florida and I'm also a painter. We've got a good track record over 10 years of selling hundreds of paintings from Dean. So I think he's a very strong, worthy artist and I do think he stops people in their tracks and it's very contemplative. He's not grabbing you with the brightest color. He's not grabbing you with bells and whistles. He's grabbing you in a different way. He's asking you to come in very slowly, examine what's going on, feel that nuance and that's what he brings to the table. So if you're 30 feet away, you would say that's realism and it is. It conveys that emotion. When you look really closely at how he's laid down the watercolor layers, there's a lot of abstraction. There's a lot going on with the design, what he does. He plays with the dark and light and everything in my opinion with Dean's work is keyed in on a strong design that sets up everything for the painting. Dean Mitchell is beyond that of a master. If you have one where you say, this is a apprentice and this is a master, well the apprentice learns how to do this or that and then once they're able to demonstrate that, then they say, oh, okay, now you're a master. Dean Mitchell is an enigma. Dean Mitchell was born to do what he does. When I look at Dean Mitchell's work, I do see science, I do see philosophy, I do see religion because some of those pieces like Rowena, when you see that particular piece, that isn't religious piece, that isn't icon, that is an actual memory that you say, oh my God, she speaks of humanity. We're in the world with someone painting like Andrew Wythe and in some cases better than Andrew Wythe, come from. And therein I think lies the spiritual quality because if you look at Dean's background, Dean achieved not because of, but in spite of. In spite of is when God takes place, therein lies the miracle. I was raised by my grandmother from 11 months old and so I was sort of a highly active child and so I would often walk the town with her, because I grew up in the pan out of Florida in a little town called Quincy. And I had no idea the kind of wealth that was in Quincy because we basically stayed in the black community. A lot of us were in first gun, our first bikes, we were ride over into the area and we would see these huge mansion. And so I began to look at the wealth discrepancy and I said, how could somebody help that big? We really didn't really understand it, but I think through the years as you become more educated, more socialized, you begin to recognize how you fit into the social structure or social order of things. And then when Martin Luther King started emerging on this scene, we were watching on television. So a lot of these things have shaped my sensibility about what I do because I do a lot of things. A lot of the environments that I do are a window into poverty and a window into that psychological space in which I emerged out of. As a teacher at Tom Harris, who there was four of us who were really interested in art, and he introduced us to local art competitions. And so we were often the only black people at these shows with Mr. Harris and it's why we were Caucasian. I called it a crucible of competition, which can be good or bad to get to put pressure on kids. He was even as focused then as he is now, but there were so many negatives. A lot of it was the black white thing. He paints what he wants to paint because it feels the need in here to make a visual statement about what's going on. And that's the strength of Dean Mitchell's painting. Half of his focus and intensity is based on what I'm doing is extremely important. And it's never been done before. And whenever or however whatever the recognition is, I have to do it my way. Which to me is almost a definition of what art is and what art is supposed to be. I will be gone at some point, but what I leave will it really make the world better in some ways and make us examine our own human behavior toward one another? He didn't paint to sell. Okay, and that sounds ridiculous because he had to make a living. He painted because it's something he had to do and something he had to say. He wants people to examine this work on a deep level. So I do think he's very important now and I think his work will be very important 100 years from now. I think art has a way of mirroring back to us what we've become. And it also provides us history in which we can reflect back on to not keep repeating the same mistakes. It's that kind of troubling world at the end of my passion to try to figure out how to derail some of the destructive behavior. Explore more at DeanMichelStudio.com