Ryan Mitchell is a New York-based photographer and former military veteran. He has a BFA in Film and Television from Savannah’s College of Art and Design. He also obtained an MFA in Art Photography from Syracuse University.
In his work, he engages with images to evoke the mystical and the surreal, reimagining lived experience. His most recent project, Thank You, For Your Service?, is a personal excavation of memory shaped by his military service—a journey through frustration, anger, and violence that ultimately leads to emotional withdrawal and physical distress. These psychological landscapes form the foundation of my visual language.
In his images, he works with archival materials—photographs, documents, and personal ephemera—not only to highlight the labor and care involved in their manipulation but also to restore a sense of materiality and presence to histories that have been marginalized or sanitized. These objects carry emotional weight and become tools of critique and healing. By recontextualizing them, there is a creative space for acceptance, challenging social norms, and inviting a reconsideration of identity, trauma, and resilience within marginalized communities.
Within this practice, both a confrontation and a remedy emerge—a way of processing memory while forging new symbolic meanings through surreal, spiritual, and mystical frameworks.
His images have been published in various publications, such as F-Stop Magazine, Undivided, and Perception. In 2024, his series was a finalist for Hand Magazine’s Ten Years out of Hand Publication and shortlisted for the Blow Up Press Photo Book Awards. He obtained the juror’s award in the CONSTRUCTED IMAGES Exhibit at Praxis Gallery and Hamidah Glasgow's Juror's Award in C4FP Center Forward 2024. His images have been exhibited across the United States and in Europe.
Exhibits:
Photoville Festival “Thank You for Your Service?” Exhibit, June 7- 22nd, 2025
Syracuse University MFA Thesis 2025 Unforeseen, March 21-28, 2025
First Time Outside” Totally Open Manifest Gallery, March 7th-April 4th 2025
“Waiting Area(s)” Choice 2025 Atlanta Photography Group Juried Exhibition, February 2025
“Thank You For Your Service?” PhotoNOLA's inaugural Photobook Grand Prize, December 2024
“First Time Outside,” Juror’s Choice, from Kristin Bloom, MFA, University of Montana-Missoula, Anything that Moves show, MFA Exhibition Online - University of Montana, December 2024
“Dirty Ride,” Emerging Vision: Biennial Student Show, December to January 2024
Hamidah Glasgow's Juror's Award “First Time Outside,” Center Forward 2024, Center for Fine Art Photography (C4FP) Fort Collins, Colorado, October 30 – November 23, 2024
“Self Portrait 1,” Candela Gallery UNBOUND13 Exhibit, July 5th 2024
“Dirty Ride,” Medium Photo Size Matters Exhibit, San Diego at the Athenaeum Art Center, April 2024
Juror’s Choice, “Rest Break,” CONSTRUCTED IMAGES Exhibit, Praxis Gallery, November 2023
Publications:
“Thank you, For Your Service?” Photobook, 2024 BUP Book Award Shortlisted Artist
“Thank You, For Your Service?” Ten Years Out of Hand, Hand Magazine Finalist Publication Prize February 2024
“Bustling Streets,” Draft 19 Magazine RIT (Rochester Institute for Technology), April 2024
“Ended Locations and Dark Spaces 2” F-Stop Magazine Open Theme Issue, June 2023