

Driving via North Houston on an unusually heat day in December, Mitchell Reece retraces his actions.
The visible artist and educator just finished teaching his very first semester of art classes at his alma mater, Prairie Check out A&M University. We cruise through the streets of Studewood (Independence Heights) and then to Acres Residences wherever he details out his aged daycare, the barbershop, library and local community heart he frequented as a youngster. “This is the Mecca. Anything in my life, my operate started off proper in this article.”
We get there at the property of his maternal grandmother, a desired destination for his family’s gatherings and the web site that fuels his artistic observe. Formally trained as a graphic designer and functioning throughout mediums, Reece takes advantage of portray to unlock and maintain memories of his earlier. “I attempt to seize people’s spirits in my paintings,” he tells me as he stands in a dwelling home adorned by framed photographs, a cozy recliner and a wooden piano his grandmother used to participate in. “I’m thinking about how to reclaim reminiscences, house and the life of people today who are no more time here.”


His latest physique of operate has a spiritual top quality, domestic scenes with stable black backgrounds and occasionally faceless figures grouped alongside one another in communion. The largescale paintings are typically based mostly on outdated photographs of family, like his aunts and cousins, but at times culled from his creativeness. “I would have these recurring desires that started out off in my grandmother’s dwelling place, the lights had been really dim and a glimmer of light-weight would surface. It took me a although to comprehend, but I always arrive back to the living room. There is one thing to it.”
Motivated by a motivation to maintain familial historical past, Reece possesses a deep feeling of community delight that permeates his work. He was born in 1990 and arrived of age for the duration of the increase of Houston’s rap scene. As early as 7th quality, he was released to Swishahouse Data, the Acres Households audio label that birthed revolutionary rap talent which include Slender Thug, Mike Jones, and OG Ron C. Like many artists of his technology, Reece’s creative spirit blossomed as a kid who, alongside his pals, would attract characters from his beloved Television set reveals like Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon. As a little one, he was generally in tune with his setting, wanting and observing intently at the facts of his every day existence. Reece makes use of art to replicate the community that manufactured him. Education, creativeness and innovation are in his blood both of those of his grandmothers were teachers, his father was a draftsman who shared Lowrider journals and artwork textbooks with him, and his grandfather developed spacecrafts for NASA in the mid-1960s. Reece’s mother, Carolyn Hausey, often knew he’d develop up to be an artist, declaring “I experience so honored that he chronicles our family heritage in his paintings. He’s often been so curious and it makes me experience good that he’s capturing these recollections.”

Soon after graduating from Klein Forest Significant Faculty and attending PVAMU, Reece identified his footing in local artwork institutions like CAMH and the Menil. In undergrad, he was mentored by artist and museum director Lauren Kelley and grew up witnessing the emergence of the city’s most prominent visual artists, together with Nathaniel Donnet, Jamal Cyrus, Robert Hodge, and Robert Pruitt. “I usually felt a component of that network. They showed me what I could do. I’m thankful I arrived up with that technology for the reason that they had by now been by means of and expert the artwork planet.”
In 2016, he moved to New York Metropolis and marked the start off of targeted commitment to his practice. He accomplished an MFA in Good Art and Structure at the College of Visible Arts, taught at Pratt Institute, and lived in Brooklyn. He was motivated by graffiti and road artwork and was immersed in a thriving group of artists. Now, he splits his time amongst Harlem and Houston, portray and educating.
Extra not too long ago, he was chosen among four other artists in a style and design contest that CAMH, hosted in conjunction with The Soiled South exhibition. Now, he’s making ready for a solo presentation 3402: A Labor of Like, that builds on his recurring aspiration, the tradition and landscape of his local community.
Coming back again residence has always been Reece’s mission. “Houston has some of the most influential creatives. There are so a lot of tastemakers. Even if we do not have the methods, we make our way.”
