Mitch Shiles - "Parking Lot 2024"
2024, Dimensions variable, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Mid-range
This work is part of a series that started in 2017. The site sensitive placement of these small sculptures intends to highlight the vast amount of land wasted in parking lots while showing them as a space of lost potential. In 2018, it was estimated that there were 2 billion parking spaces in the United States, when summed up they are greater than the land surface area of the state of Maryland. When the travel lanes used to pull in to each space are included, that area swells to slightly less than the area of West Virginia. The vast majority of these spaces sit empty, and fill our waterways with toxic run off every time it rains, poisoning wildlife and ourselves.
2024, Dimensions variable, Media: Stoneware, Firing Process: Mid-range
This work is part of a series that started in 2017. The site sensitive placement of these small sculptures intends to highlight the vast amount of land wasted in parking lots while showing them as a space of lost potential. In 2018, it was estimated that there were 2 billion parking spaces in the United States, when summed up they are greater than the land surface area of the state of Maryland. When the travel lanes used to pull in to each space are included, that area swells to slightly less than the area of West Virginia. The vast majority of these spaces sit empty, and fill our waterways with toxic run off every time it rains, poisoning wildlife and ourselves.
Mitch Shiles - "24,000 Liters"
Sewn from ultralightweight ripstop nylon, this wind driven inflatable sculpture represents the per capita volumetric amount of daily CO2 emissions of the United States in 2016.
Sewn from ultralightweight ripstop nylon, this wind driven inflatable sculpture represents the per capita volumetric amount of daily CO2 emissions of the United States in 2016.
Mitch Shiles - "With Our Own Worlds"
2019, speed of light
This is a long exposure photograph of a light based work made using a hand made pixel painter. The work asks what seems to be an absurdist question, while hinting at the death of the earth as we know it being an intractable problem. The title offers a both a response to the question and a critique of humanity, in that the worlds we build around our own self actualization may be to blame for the smothering of the earth as we know it.
2019, speed of light
This is a long exposure photograph of a light based work made using a hand made pixel painter. The work asks what seems to be an absurdist question, while hinting at the death of the earth as we know it being an intractable problem. The title offers a both a response to the question and a critique of humanity, in that the worlds we build around our own self actualization may be to blame for the smothering of the earth as we know it.
Mitch Shiles - "To Tread So Softly My Feet Hardly Touch"
2019, The speed of light
Long Exposure of a light work taken in during a snow storm at Chautauqua Park in Boulder Colorado.
2019, The speed of light
Long Exposure of a light work taken in during a snow storm at Chautauqua Park in Boulder Colorado.
Mitch Shiles - "Plastic City"
Made from plastic found on a beach in Itoshima Japan
Made from plastic found on a beach in Itoshima Japan
Mitch Shiles - "Plastic City"
2019, Video 2Min 35Sec
Video Stills from performative destruction.
2019, Video 2Min 35Sec
Video Stills from performative destruction.
Mitch Shiles - "Drumbakfiets from the Bikelsile collaboration"
2024, about 9ft long
The Drumbakfiets was created in collaboration with Bicycle mechanic Brian McDermott, and with the consultation of Doug Kruger seen playing the drums. The cargo bike portion was made from a discarded wallmart mountian bike, a used bed frame, a discarded kids BMX fork, a piece of box tube steel, a broken mid century chair, a discarded beer pong table, and various scavenged bicycle components. The bucket drum set was created from assorted used containers and buckets attached to a support system made from an old oil tank, bed frame & bicycle parts. This Bicycle is used in critical mass rides for our transportation advocacy group Bikelisle, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
2024, about 9ft long
The Drumbakfiets was created in collaboration with Bicycle mechanic Brian McDermott, and with the consultation of Doug Kruger seen playing the drums. The cargo bike portion was made from a discarded wallmart mountian bike, a used bed frame, a discarded kids BMX fork, a piece of box tube steel, a broken mid century chair, a discarded beer pong table, and various scavenged bicycle components. The bucket drum set was created from assorted used containers and buckets attached to a support system made from an old oil tank, bed frame & bicycle parts. This Bicycle is used in critical mass rides for our transportation advocacy group Bikelisle, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Mitch Shiles - "Shield and Shell"
porcelain, custom electrical cord, headphone speaker, ocean sounds made by the artist, 2016, 3’x1.5’x 2’
porcelain, custom electrical cord, headphone speaker, ocean sounds made by the artist, 2016, 3’x1.5’x 2’
Mitch Shiles - "We Painted Ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-ocks"
Devonian fossils, rocks, lead glaze, Helium, mylar, dimensions variable 2013
Devonian fossils, rocks, lead glaze, Helium, mylar, dimensions variable 2013
Mitch Shiles - "News From Somewhere"
wood ceramic glaze luster custom electronics, 2013, 8’x5’x7’
wood ceramic glaze luster custom electronics, 2013, 8’x5’x7’
Artist Statement
While standing in the garage, I noticed a fresh crack in the window. Upon closer inspection of the break, I distinguished a small twig-like artifact wedged between the split pieces of glass. I looked closer and saw the scaly flesh and small talons of a bird's leg, on the other side of the pane the tissue ended with fine toothpick like bones and tendons protruding out. From this arrangement of things my imagination took me to an event where a bird had collided with the window, split it, and had become entrapped with one abrupt mistake. Yet somehow, the animal was able to dismember its leg and escape, leaving the limb lodged in the crack.
Like the Bird’s initial perception of the glass, there are many things that I cannot discern with my own unaided senses, often lacking visual, or tangible evidence, and in some cases personal experience. I cannot see the carbon dioxide leaving the flue or tail pipe of a combustion process, I cannot sense the nano-plastics infiltrating my lungs, I do not know first hand the experiences of people trapped by a system of meaningless production. Much of my understanding of them comes from representations. Stories that present select and often uncomplicated perspectives. Models and diagrams with bright saccharin hues, such as the faux coloring of an electron microscope image, the light blue veins in an anatomy textbook, or the pastel shadings of sovereignties on a map. Simulacrum with color schemes designed to delineate the confusion of reality.
Like the bird, confuses the fluid air with the solid window my work explores our confusion of material and experiences and how making or consuming anything is a paradox of destruction, our lack of critique has led us to a global spiral of capitalist entropy that we have become unwilling participants in. As we approach the end of the wild and natural world, can we use art as a mirror to show ourselves and our fellow humans what we have become, while simultaneously using it to show that a different path is possible.
Bio
Mitch Shiles is an artist who lives and works in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He earned his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics, his Undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. He is currently collaborating with a transportation advocacy group called Bikelisle, campaigning to make sustainable transportation options available and safe.