Kelly Taylor Mitchell, MFA

Biography

Faculty member since 2019

Kelly Taylor Mitchell is an Assistant Professor for Arts and Visual Culture. 

Kelly Taylor Mitchell is an artist and educator who lives and works between Atlanta, Georgia and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Working across printmaking, papermaking, performance, installation, and soft sculpture her current work stems from inherited origin points in the American South and Caribbean. Mitchell's practice is one of Diasporic mapping that embraces found textiles, foraged plant matter, and functional spiritual technologies as the connective tissue that links kin beyond biology. 

Syncreticism, marronage, the language of revelry and the aesthetics of privacy act as points of reference and research. Mitchell is the 2024 Inaugural Nellie Mae Rowe Prize Seed Awardee, a 2023-2024 Lyndon House Arts Foundation Fellow, a 2022 Atlanta Artadia Awardee, a 2021-2022 SMFA at Tufts Travelling Fellow, the 2022 Inaugural Spelman College Affiliate Fellow at The American Academy in Rome and a 2020-2021 Working Artist Project Fellow at The Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.

She has completed residencies with The Arts & Social Justice Program at Emory University, Midtown Alliance, The University of Texas at Austin, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Atlanta Contemporary. Her work can be found in collections such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Harvard Fine Arts Library, Duke University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Walker Art Center Library, and publications like Burnaway, Art Papers, and Hand Papermaking. She has taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Virginia Commonwealth University, Penland School of Craft,  Dieu Donne and is an Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Spelman College, since 2019.  

Education

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

Courses Taught

• Installation and Performance Art 
• Art Process and Practice
• Contemporary Art Making Strategies 
• Projects in Hand Papermaking 
• Projects in Printmaking  
• Portfolio Criticism I & II  (Senior Thesis) 
• Topics in Studio Art: Black Feminist Thought

Research Interests

• Afro Syncretism and Afro Diasporic Religions 
• Marronage 
• Craft Technologies
• Embodied Knowledge
• Aesthetics of Privacy 
• Black Feminist Creative Practice and Process 

Select Publications

News and Notes

Select Solo Exhibitions

• "Kelly Taylor Mitchell: mouth wide open," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
• "Memory Worker," Lyndon House Arts Center
• "Reunion," Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia 

Select Group Exhibitions

• "Seams to Be: New Approaches to Textile Techniques," Georgia Museum of Art
• "Kelly Taylor Mitchell and Sergio Suárez: Material Memory," Swan Coach House Gallery
• "Rising From the Sifted Screen," Wofford College
• "Flow Tuscaloosa," The Paul Bryant Museum at The University of Alabama
• "Southern Exigency," The Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University