Mitchell Villa’s practice is a deeply personal exploration of his thoughts, experiences, and feelings, which he compresses into chaotically ephemeral images. He approaches painting intuitively, allowing his subconscious to guide his work and moving away from a focus on deliberate meaning-making. His fluid, painterly style, though detailed, evokes a sense of memory and rejects linear concepts of time, reinforcing the subconscious nature of his process. Villa’s monumental paintings, with their references to old masters, are nostalgic and recall the imagery of feverish dreams. They are watery yet full of vibrant movement, layered with fantastical, intuitive archetypes that bridge the space between reality and what is remembered. Drawn by the endless offerings of painting as a medium, Villa’s work inhabits an area of hybridity invoking the contemporary by employing and reinterpreting the historical. Rooted in the expressions of figurative and still life painting, he draws from a variety of art historical movements, including Rococo and Baroque, to underpin both his aesthetic modalities and conceptual leanings. Villa’s larger-than-life paintings emerge from a meticulous process: starting with sketches, studies, and collages, they transition into detailed photoshoots featuring live models and props, including the artist’s own hand-made ceramics. By hand-selecting each compositional element, Villa articulates his vision, resulting in a sensibility that is simultaneously familiar and surreal. Mitchell Villa is a self-taught artist residing on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.