Interview by Jimon

1- How would you describe Nora Mitchell?   I’m an artist. I grew up very quiet and that led me to become observant. It’s visible from my paintings that I’m somewhat sex-fixated, and I kind of always have been. I’m also a very sensitive person.

2- How did art enter your life?  Art entered my life at a young age. I grew up in New York so I went to museums like the Met and the Guggenheim almost every weekend. I started pursuing art more seriously after doing a wide range of other jobs and gaining experiences that gave me something to say through painting.

3- What does being an artist mean to you?  Being an artist means expressing yourself and the time period in a personal way. I think it also means being a part of something bigger than yourself.

4- Did you have any encouragement from your parents to pursue art?  My parents did encourage me, they took me to museums and had me drawing since I was a baby. My mom used to paint when I was a kid. She painted geometric things and stormy seas I remember.

5- What does it feel like when you are making art?  I feel like I’m channeling something besides just myself when I’m making anything. I feel connected to the world around me, past and present. I feel like I’m doing the right thing when I’m painting.

6- Do you have any rituals before starting to paint?  I listen to a lot of music and I dance.

7- You are a New Yorker, how does that influence you as an artist?  I grew up more quickly living in a city like New York. New York encourages freedom and sex. My art is reflective of my sexuality which became important to me at a pretty young age. It also encourages the drive to do something unique and special.

8- Do you use live models or is it all from your imagination?  I photograph my friends and girls in the scene of people I spend time with. I use those photos for reference as well as images found online, often from porn. Then I collage those photos into backgrounds of either found images or photos I took myself. I want these collaged images to resemble something dreamy and they’re usually kind of syrupy, over-the-top idealized visions of femininity. I am also fixated lately on nurses and doctor’s offices. Sometimes I re-imagine the girls I use for models in this way. I like to mix the sensual and the clinical. It adds to the strangeness and provocative quality of a painting.

9- What do you dream about?  My dreams are usually very surreal. I dream of beautiful places and also have recurring nightmares. My dreams are very unlike my paintings and I don’t relate them much.

10- Do you remember the first piece of art that captured your imagination?  The first piece of art that I really loved was a Will Barnet print that hung over my bed when I was a kid. It was an image of a woman with doves. I loved the elegance of it and the timelessness of the woman.

11- Your work definitely intrigues the senses, is that on purpose or is it personal?  I want my paintings of women to be titillating, but I also want them to make you think. Often people guess that they’re about the objectification of women in our culture, but they’re not really. They’re about my experience with sexuality and the sexuality I see around me everywhere. They’re mostly about power and softness mixed with a bit of humor.

12- You are very active on social media, how has social media affected your work?  Social media has been the way I get my work noticed and sold. It’s also the way I view art every day. It inspires and influences me a lot. I also see tons of photos of girls on my feed, lots of sexy stuff, which inspires me to make art around that and be a part of it in a way.

13- How do you define success?  Success to me is having enough money to support yourself and feeling like you contributed something worthwhile.

14- If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table?  Probably would be Leonard Cohen, Hilma at Klint, and Lana Del Rey. I would want to sit and talk with each of them one-on-one because I am less talkative in groups of three or more.

15- If you could live in any museum anywhere in the world which would be your choice?  I would like to live in the Guggenheim because I really love the building. I would like to lie down in the center and look up at the spiral of it while falling asleep. I would also like to run around in there.

16- Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration?  I usually go to Tumblr for visual inspiration honestly, but I also visit the meadow across the street from the building I grew up in to think, especially when I am going through some kind of change.

17- How would someone find you on social media?  Collectors and supportive friends share my work around. It can be through photographers’ pages too because I have been a subject for photos.

18- Please name the first thing that comes to your mind while reading the following: 

Art=Collective creativity.

Food=Boring to talk about for me but I like eating out.

Sports=I don’t watch.

Politics=Messy.

Poor=Unfair.

God=A combination of every living thing.

Rich=Lucky.

Luxury=Things I can’t afford but spend money on anyways.

Sex=Closeness, outlet, language.

Picasso=Icon.

Religion=Not for me.