Museum of Art and Light | 8/20/2025 through 2/16/2026 | Manhattan, KS

Seminal Moments

An exhibition at the Museum of Art and Light in Kansas unpacks 40 years of poignant paintings by Dean Mitchell.

By Sarah Gianelli

Dean Mitchell grew up in the 1970s South, in an all-Black, working-class neighborhood in Quincy, Florida, not far from Tallahassee. He was raised by his grandmother and, for a time, his great-grandmother, whose death when he was 6 left an indelible imprint on him. Her sudden, not fully explained disappearance from the land of the living, taught him early on about life’s fleetingness and loss.

Carolyn, 2018, acrylic on panel, 5 x 7½ in. Courtesy of the artist.

“When my great-grandmother died, for a long time I didn’t understand where she went,” he says. “What did ‘she went to heaven’ mean? All I knew is we never got to see her again and I never looked at life the same way…I never saw it as a permanent fixture. In my world people leave and you never see them again.”

The seeds for feelings of abandonment, and unworthiness, had already been planted by his mother and watered by his father. His mother got pregnant in college, the result of an affair with a married man who was also from Quincy. His mother fled to Pittsburgh while still pregnant with Mitchell, who she kept a secret from family and friends. When Mitchell’s grandmother did find out, she insisted her daughter come back, finish college and she would raise the child, who was not quite a year old. His mother out of the picture, Mitchell grew up around the corner from the parents of his biological father, who, upon visits home, would not acknowledge Mitchell as his son, despite it being common knowledge in the town.

New Orleans, Higher Grounds, 2005, watercolor, 20 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist.

This, of course, is a biography in broad strokes but it’s important in understanding Mitchell’s choice of subject matter: portraits of the sick and elderly, often his grandmother, aunts and uncles; rundown buildings and shotgun houses. What he saw in the world around him, what he felt inside as a boy, became a means of flipping the narrative of being unloved and unwanted into pictures of beauty.

“I love things that are worn out and raggedy and torn down,” he says. “I tend to gravitate to that subject matter…there has to be some underlying connection to that feeling of abandonment. Maybe because it’s something people don’t want to see, and I think in some way it’s kind of like my mother hiding me and who I was…there was this ugliness in it, some great sin. It was like I was here, but I was this accident that they didn’t really want. It’s hard to wrap your small mind around why you’re here when you feel like you aren’t supposed to be here. In some way, maybe my picking my subject matter was really selecting myself and affirming my own existence.”

Gravity, 2014, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Also affirmative of his existence is a retrospective of four decades of the artist’s work at the Museum of Art and Light in Manhattan, Kansas. Heritage & the Human Condition runs August 20 through March 9, 2026.

Erin Dragotto, the museum’s executive director, says, “Dean’s life experience growing up in the American South, family upbringing, and perception of the world coupled with artistic ability is what pushes Dean to reveal true portrayals of rural America. Dean’s importance as an American painter embraces yet extends beyond his cultural influence…When I look at Dean’s work, I see a true artist who can positively translate seminal moments of human emotion, reaching beyond a specified culture, and landing squarely inside humanity itself.”

Sam and Dolly, 1995, oil on panel, 30 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Mitchell has worked across a variety of mediums, from watercolor and egg tempera to oils and acrylics. He paints figurative works, street scenes and still lifes, and his style ranges from the impressionistic and painterly, to the graphic and abstract, a variety driven by his desire to master any painting technique that he hasn’t already.

Grandmother, 1987, acrylic on board, 10 x 15 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Mitchell reconciled with his father 15 years ago and, despite his painful childhood, he is incredibly upbeat and passionate about life and the hope that his art can contribute in some small way to making the world a better place.

“The only thing we truly own is time and we spend so much of it in a wasteful manner,” he says. “I am no different than you. We are all just human beings made of flesh and blood who are going to die. I’m trying to show people this is the process of life. I want people to look at who we truly are, and if I can do that with my artwork, if I can move people to a deeper place spiritually, if I can help in any to get us to treat each other any better, if I can make a small dent in that with this exhibition, I’ve done my job.” —