Mitch Temple: The Sea Inside

Mitch Temple’s “The Sea Inside” is one piece comprised of fifty-two paintings—the number in a deck of cards, weeks in the year, and the age he was when painting the series. Each piece is 18×24, black and white, acrylic on paper, and features a large, totemic “wave” shape front and center in every piece. He employs chance operations in concert and in contrast to his painterly process to create paintings that balance a carnival of abstract passages and representational imagery. His work shows the flickerings and fringes of consciousness, and its playful path toward communication, connection, and meaning.

About the artist
Mitch Temple is an artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. His drawings and paintings over the last few years have been focused on the imagery and theme of waves, and the tug of war between conscious, unconscious, personal, and cultural forces.

His most recent film is “The Dreams of Al Capone”: a fair-use project that remixes over twenty films and a dozen other found videos into a story about a reporter who discovers an illegal CIA operation (as a practical solution to replace found dialogue, the whole film is dubbed in French). His film “Los Angeles” is a feature film about a mute who believes God is calling her to save the baby Jesus (available on most streaming platforms). He’s created several short films, and two experimental features “Limbo” and “The Light”, as well as a short documentary on poet, art critic, and SFAI professor, Bill Berkson entitled, “The Air You Breathe”.

Mitch received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute where he worked with many of the artists featured in the di Rosa collection including, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, and Ray Beldner. He was deeply influenced by the Artists who taught there including, Bill Berkson, Pegan Brooke, Dewey Crumpler, Amy Ellingson, Jeremy Morgan, Frances McCormick, Bruce MacGaw, Janis Lipzin, George Kuchar, and many others.

After finishing undergrad at Georgetown University, Mitch volunteered to teach in South Africa. Inspired by the promise of social justice through education, in 2002 as a grad student at SFAI, he co-founded Root Division, an arts and education non-profit that provides subsidized studio space to emerging artists, affordable adult education classes, and free after school arts education to neighborhood youth.

He lives in Los Angeles with his two children Estelle and Cole, pretty close to his brother, too far from his sister, and somewhat near ten of his dear cousins (traffic depending).