Mitch Bierer (b.1988) was introduced to the arts at an early age by watching his grandfather create large scale public murals in his small town of Illinois. He was then inspired to follow in his grandfathers footsteps after gaining insight into how impactful and engaging public art can be. Bierer received his BFA from Lindenwood University in St.Charles Missouri where he acquired technical skills and a deeper understanding of the rich history of art.
Now currently residing in San Francisco, Mitch is bridging the gap between the classical fine arts and urban contemporary. With a primary focus on using spray paint as a medium he's developed an energetic, colorful, and painterly approach. Many consider Bierer's work to be a fresh take on what can be possible with the new tools of his age. You can find his paintings in abandoned buildings, busy streets, galleries, or the occasional overtaken billboard.
Mitch’s main focus and drive in the art world is to be apart of the art continuum, and to add the next link in the chain for future artists to grow from.
“Seeing Love”
Seeing Love Series
This is my newest and most current series that I am working on. This series consists of portraits, mainly the eyes, that are made up of tons of tiny love tags weaving in and out of the flesh. After studying my body parts as elements of design, I realized that the intent behind your vision plays a major role in how you see the world. In a world so caught up in divisivness and hate, it can sometimes be difficult to see the good. So by shifting the intention behind your vision to love, the world around you starts to become more colorful, beautiful, and overall more enjoyable. This shift in perspective not only affects you, but others around you. In discovery of this I felt the need to make art works about it.
Self Awareness Series
I hit a bit of a rough patch in acknowledging my own self worth. And I needed a way out of the constant negative bombardment of my mind. I took on an approach of viewing every body part as individual elements of design that make up me being me. This allowed me to have gratitude for everything I have, and gave me new outlook on life. I turned this new mindset into a series of paintings that depict everything from your toes to you nipples. With the intention to give the viewer a new found appreciation and gratitude for just existing at all in this wonderful and sometimes strange existence.
Wheat-Pasting
Wheat-Pasting has given me the ability to take my fine art practice into the streets. My paintings are extremely time consuming relative to the typical street artists work, and therefore make it nearly impossible to do anything unsanctioned. Continuing on with what other legendary artists have done in the past I just applied this tool to my art practice as well. Having this tool gave me the capacity to reach more people with my art work adding to the overall impact my art can have on the public.
“New Marks”
Shown at the Mad Art Gallery STL
The show “New Marks” came about by trying to represent the infancy of the spray paint can in its place in the history of art. And what better way to do that than by connecting the medium with something that parallels it in nature, an infant. To me the spray paint can and the baby are one in the same, and both of them have yet to fully impact the world at large. But they have an infinite capacity to do just that, adding a new mark onto society and history.
Abstract Works
Inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s “Automobile Tire Print” piece, these works come to embrace the quality of line that spray paint provides. This quality of line is so unique and new aesthetically that embracing the line in and of itself creates some really nice beautiful pieces. With using the spray paint can comes the ability to work on larger scale pieces while maintaining a sense of flow and organic motion. Something that having to continually load a brush can diminish. The freedom and intuition and energy are much easier to tap in because of that.
Old Randoms
A random assortment of some of my earlier works.
