Howard L. “GATO” Mitchell is a black, afro-latin, award-winning multi-media artist: film director, poet, writer, and painter.

With a philosophical background and master’s in adult development, and working under the pseudonym GATO, his themes are universal.

Marked by the colliding worlds of brooding modernism and expressionism, with attention to graphic composition carried over from his training as a painter, his approach to the image is formalistic and human, focusing on story in equal measure to atmosphere and visual punctuation.

Mitchell is currently working on his first feature film, a mystery thriller. His most recent awards include the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship Award (2018) for demonstrating an ongoing commitment to the media arts, the Oregon Made Creative Foundation’s “Tell Your Story Grant Award (2021),” the Regional Arts and Culture Council’s “Make, Learn, Build” Grant award (2021), a special commendation for the Betty Bowen Award (2022), and is a finalist and member of the 2022 Willamette Writers’ FilmLabTV