Faculty Profile

MFA, Rhode Island School of Design
BFA, Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts

Kelly Taylor Mitchell centers oral histories woven into the fabric of the Africana Diaspora, specifically related to concepts of land tenure, territorial claims, community autonomy, swamp marronage, and inherited identity. Her work manifests as immersive installations and partnered artists books offering a venue for the sensorial –specifically smell- to connect to, convey, and reimagine rituals and rites of autonomous kin, collectives, and individuals of the Africana Diaspora.

Taylor Mitchell and her practice are deeply tied to familial roots in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Pennsylvania. Taylor Mitchell’s interdisciplinary practice spans printmaking, papermaking, installation, book arts and sculpture.

She has completed residencies at The Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Anderson Ranch Arts Center. She is an upcoming artist-in-residence at The Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. Her work is in the collections of The RISD Museum, Providence Public Library, Fleet Library Special Collections, Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

A selection of her gallery and museum shows include: Not Gallery, Austin Texas; Anderson Brickler Gallery, Tallahassee, Florida, Second State Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Meek Eaton Black Archives and Museum, Tallahassee, Florida, Project Row House, Houston, Texas, and RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island.

Taylor Mitchell has taught and mentored in community and academic contexts including: The Rhode Island School of Design, Virginia Commonwealth University, New Urban Arts (Providence), and The Visual Arts Center of Richmond. She received her BFA in Printmaking  from Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts; and her MFA in Printmaking from The Rhode Island School of Design with a certificate in Collegiate Teaching.

Materials and Concepts
Installation Art
Contemporary Art Making Strategies 

Oral History, Autonomous Black Community, Marronage, The Sensorial, Papermaking, Book Arts, Immersive Installations, and Printmaking  

"An Ambitious but Essential Multi Purpose Checklist for Discerning Black Artists", Manual , September 2017
"Counter with Candor", RISD XYZ, January 2017
"DC Women’s March: RISD Women Represent", RISD Grad Journal, January 2017"Poems From Ongoing Observations", Self Published Chapbook, October 2015

Awards and Residence

2019 Anderson Ranch, Artist-in-Residence, Snowmass, CO

2018 Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Artist-In-Residence, Minneapolis, MN

2018 Grand Prize, 4th Annual Artists' Book Competition, RISD Library

2016 - 2018 Graduate Assistantship, Rhode Island School of Design

2016 - 2018 Graduate Fellowship, Rhode Island School of Design