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Dane Mitchell

Buried Gemstone, 2016

gemstone

Buried Gemstone is exactly that, a large gemstone buried on the headland Sculpture on the Gulf route, the placement known only to the artist. This latent object — a precious stone — presents an encounter between the imagination and the site for the viewer: the headland landscape becomes a field infected by the possibility of the hidden object.

The unseen Buried Gemstone is a counterpoint to the physicality of much of the art on the route. The artist hopes to encourage conversation about the dominance of vision and the role of the imagination in the arts, the way ideas might be buried within objects.

Image: Dane Mitchell
Buried Gemstone Sketch 1, 2016
pigment liner on tracing paper

Dane Mitchell

born 1976, Auckland
Lives and works in Auckland

Dane Mitchell produces art works and spatial experiences that investigate how systems of knowledge are constructed and practically applied. Consulting widely with practitioners in fields such as alchemy, shamanism, witchcraft and perfumery, Mitchell employs principles and rituals from these areas with the intention of displacing our expectations of a world ordered by visible cause and effect. Through his practice, Mitchell tests how human beliefs and convictions exist in spaces between logic and perception. Operating on the threshold of logic, his work supports the existence of uncertainty, or instability, within rational understanding.

Dane Mitchell has a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a Master of Philosophy from AUT University, Auckland. Mitchell has exhibited widely locally and internationally and participated in major biennales including: Biennale of Sydney (2016), Australia; Trio Biennial (2015), Brazil; Gwangju Biennale (2012), South Korea; Liverpool Biennial (2012), United Kingdom; Singapore Biennale (2011), Singapore; Ljubljana Biennale (2011), Slovenia; Busan Biennale (2010), South Korea and the Tarrawara Biennial (2008), Australia.

danemitchell.co.nz
Represented by Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland; RaebervonStenglin, Zurich; Christopher Grimes, Los Angeles.