Artists on Mitchell: Jadé Fadojoutimi

Joan Mitchell's work resonates with the ethereal qualities of life. Although some of her titles might suggest a connection with nature and landscape in particular, one could also explore how they highlight our distance with reality, or our experience with seeing itself, which makes the works invigorating in the context of abstract painting.

When looking at Two Sunflowers, the title of this painting is our first invitation, already suggesting a relationship with a familiar entity through language. One might question how the painting’s conversation with the viewer might change in the absence of written language. However, the exciting element to witness in this abstract work is its ability to evoke a relatable experience and go beyond it—delving into a perspective of seeing by indulging in a brief moment of interaction and transforming it into a prolonged visitation. In this case, it’s the nuance of the sunflower and the infatuation with its palette.

When looking at one of Mitchell’s paintings, I like to imagine the movement that has gone into a work on view—how the artist’s body not only leaves its presence through mark making, but also how Mitchell creates linear and non-linear movements as her body dances upon the surface, suggesting a sunflower to be an overall climate. It’s as though her hands have become a second pair of feet elaborately expressing and trapping life, and its emotive experience, in the marks left on the canvas.

This energy abstracts the materiality of reality itself, dissolving and diluting figurative forms into anything but mere marks, but instead monumental relationships and conversations with everyday environments.

Jadé Fadojutimi is a painter based in London. This text is excerpted from an essay originally written for Tate Etc. on Mitchell’s painting “Two Sunflowers” (1980), which was on loan from Fondation Louis Vuitton to Tate Modern from July 2023 to February 2025.