About
contact: mitchel_proctor@yahoo.com
Having developed his practice within the field of social documentary photography, Mitchel Proctor is interested in the idea of documentation as it relates to how we determine cultural significance. His practice is a constant negotiation between a genuine respect for the intents and aesthetic vision allowed to the journalistic voyeur, and an instinct to satirize not only the inherent ethical motivation behind such voyeurism but also the very idea of documentation.
The alienation of travel is pivotal to Proctor’s work. It is the encounter between the foreigner and those whom he finds foreign, the navigation through a landscape that provokes un-ease. To be in a position where it is assumed that one will be out of place, to find oneself in a position to recognize the exceptional in the banal. Proctor’s photos communicate a fleeting sensation of being there when things align, though never seeking to shroud the photographer’s role as author of these seemingly fated encounters with the unfamiliar. In the same gesture of pointing to what is foreign, these images expose the photographer as not witness to but rather arbiter of foreignness. They are a parody of photos we take in our travels – a parody of the desire to find the exceptional. How do we determine and in which places do we seek that which refreshes us from banality? How do we make real the feeling of being “outside” and thus removed? Mitchel Proctor treats the camera as a means to enact and elaborate the necessity of continuing this process of displacement – finding it elemental to the inextricability between feeling external and internal to what surrounds us.
Education
Bachelor of Art in Photography from Sheffield Hallam University
Exhibitions and Commissions
2017
la ou les sentiers group exhibition video piece Nagel at A L’Artier Tarbes France hosted by artist YMY Nigis 3rd march
2016
Common Ground photography exhibition and video installation of The great malady ~ Horror of Home Vol.2 At ATM Gallery/Studio 5305 Bolm RD Austin Texas 78721, Sept 1 – Oct 1
The great malady ~ Horror of Home Vol.2 Video premiere at All Saints Church, South Cave, UK Jan 27
2015
Two-year retrospective The House of Blah Blah Gallery, Middlesbrough UK Aug 27 – Oct 8
The collapse of time in images ~ Vol.1 ft. David Metcalfe Video premiere at The House of Blah Blah Gallery, Middlesbrough UK August 27
Solo exhibition The Black Gallery, Berlin, Germany May 21 – June 5
2014
Solo exhibition Jungbusch, Berlin, Germany, October 1 – 15
Dasein Berlin premiere at collector Nathan Duc Koestlin building, Berlin, Germany August 13th
Dasein UK premiere at The House of Blah Blah Gallery, Group Show (Robert Benjamin, B.T. Butterworth, Ella Camille Deacy, Sofieke Aleksandra Kertis, Philip Larry, Keren Pearson, Melanie Wheeler, Charlotte Winskill) Middlesbrough, UK July 17
Enter (personal works: A camera in berlin) Blockbuster exhibitions, Group Exhibition (featuring Nina Behrendt, Kristen Cammack, Sophie Douala, Tom Evans, Moritz Gramming and Jeanne Sardou) Berlin, Germany Jan 30th – Mar 27
2013
In-house photographer for Disgraceland, Middlesbrough, UK
Disposable Entries Office of Vice Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK Feb 2013
Picture Prose Duration 15 minutes, Group Exhibition (featuring Melissa Pink, Charlotte Winskill, Bobby Bengium, Brad Butterworth and Kerin Persons) TS1 Middlesbrough, UK Jan 27
Abyss SIA gallery, Sheffield, UK Jan 2013 – Jan 2014
2012
Abyss MIMA, Middlesborough, UK May 2012
Judas, Transcendental Individual, Disposable Entries Creative Spark, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK March 2012
Judas, Vertigo Red Square, Middlesbrough, UK April 2012
Book 46 Workspace Sheffield, Sheffield, UK April 2012
Almighty Controller for Group Exhibition “Control” at Bank Street Arts, Sheffield UK Feb 2012
Publications
Romance Novel Available at Farewell Books and Felix the Gallery, 2016
Judas Wisdom Print Makers, 2012
http://www.nocultureicons.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mass-Observation/107056909423349
A Community Under Threat Cleveland College of Art and Design, 2012
Every Tuesday at Coopers a 6 month documentation of the steel works in Port Clarence, 2010
The Pride of the Past Commissioned by the City of Middlesborough in commemoration of the 100th birthday of Transporter Bridge, 2009